BRIAN HERBERT

We moved 23 times before I was out of high school!

My grandfather was a police officer. He taught Dad about lie detectors and police interrogation methods, so Dad got this old World War II lie detector and used it on us regularly. He was obsessed with the truth.

My wife noticed that I wrote really good complaint letters about faulty products and that I could get anything I wanted out of these big corporations, and she said that I was a good writer and that I should go to my dad and ask him for help.

There's so much overlapping in science fiction.

I'll keep writing 'Dune' books as long as my mother's spirit continues to support the project.

In 'Sidney's Comet,' thanks to all the consumerism, all the garbage had to be put in deep space, even though we're not supposed to litter the cosmos - that was an environmental message. Although it was funny, it had an important message.

I didn't actually get along with my dad when I was growing up, so by the time I was in my 20s, I didn't think I was going to be a writer.

My dad was an adventurer, my mother a romantic. When they met in college, both were creative writers; the writing was a bond.

In the heat of battle, heroes emerge, sometimes from the most unlikely of sources.

Simplicity is the most difficult of all concepts.

Let pressure pass over and through you. That way you can't be harmed by it.

Opportunities are a tricky crop, with tiny flowers that are difficult to see and even more difficult to harvest.

The more tightly packed the group, the greater the need for strict social ranks and orders.

Freedom is an elusive concept. Some men hold themselves prisoner even when they have the power to do as they please and go where they choose, while others are free in their hearts, even as shackles restrain them.

Life is filled with tests, one after another, and if you don't recognize them, you are certain to fail the most important ones.

There is no man so blind as one who has made up his mind.

The man who sees an opportunity and does nothing is asleep with his eyes open.

No person can ever know everything that is in the heart of another. We are all Face Dancers in our souls.

It's so much more interesting to study a ... damaged world. I find it difficult to learn anything in a place that's too civilized.

Humans are different in private than in the presence of others. While the private persona merges into the social persona in varying degrees, the union is never complete. Something is always held back.

Anything imagined can be made real ... given sufficient genius.

Wounds make better lessons than lectures.

An ignorant friend is worse than a learned foe.

Any school for free citizens must begin by teaching distrust, not trust. It must teach questioning, not acceptance of stock answers.