“We”, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, translated by Natasha Randall

Pg. 105

The city below looked made of pale-blue blocks of ice. All of a sudden, a cloud appears, a quick, slanted shadow. And the ice turns leaden and swollen and, like when standing on the banks of a river in the springtime, you anticipate–any moment now–a cracking, a surging, a twirling, a bolting away. But then the moment passes, and the next does too, and the ice is still, and instead, you yourself are swelling, your heart is beating more anxiously and frequently. (But why am I writing about this, and where do these strange sensations come from? There’s no such thing as an icebreaker that could break the most transparent and most durable crystal that is our life.)

“Heretics of Dune”, by Frank Herbert

Pg. 279

This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding. You put aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here — the screen of the magi: Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an organizer of chaos.

–The Atreides Manifesto, Bene Gesserit Archives

“God, Emperor of Dune”, by Frank Herbert

From page 79:

Odd as it may seem, great struggles such as the one you can see emerging from my journals are not always visible to the participants. Much depends on what people dream in the secrecy of their hearts. I have always been as concerned with the shaping of dreams as well as with the shaping of actions. Between the lines of my journals is the struggle with humankind’s view of itself — a sweaty contest on a field where motives from our darkest past can well up out of an unconscious reservoir and become events with which we not only must live but contend. It is the hydra-headed monster which always attacks from your blind side. I pray, therefore, that when you have traversed my portion of the Golden Path you no longer will be innocent children dancing to music you cannot hear.