Dune Spice Quotes

He who controls the spice controls the universe.

Leto turned a hard stare at Kynes. And Kynes, returning the stare, found himself troubled by a fact he had observed here: This Duke was concerned more over the men than he was over the spice. He risked his own life, and that of his son to save the men. He passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to men's lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat. Against his own will and all previous judgements, Kynes admitted to himself: I like this Duke.

How strange that so few people ever looked up from the spice long enough to wonder at the near-ideal nitrogen-oxygen-CO2 balance being maintained here in the absence of large areas of plant cover.

Are you already training my replacement? Piter demanded. "Replace you? Why, Piter, where could I find another Mentat with your cunning and venom?" "The same place you found me, Baron." "Perhaps I should at that," the Baron mused. "You do seem a bit unstable lately. And the spice you eat!" "Are my pleasures too expensive, Baron? Do you object to them?" "My dear Piter, your pleasures are what tie you to me. How could I object to that?

Ah! Indeed but! But he consumes too much spice, eats it like candy. Look at his eyes! He might have come directly from the Arrakeen labor pool. Efficient, Piter, but he's still emotional and prone to passionate outbursts. Efficient, Piter, but he still can err. -Baron Vladimir

He passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to men’s lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat.

Can you remember your first taste of spice?” “It tasted like cinnamon.

Can you remember your first taste of spice?” “It tasted like cinnamon.” “But never twice the same,” he said. “It’s like life—it presents a different face each time you take it. Some hold that the spice produces a learned-flavor reaction. The body, learning a thing is good for it, interprets the flavor as pleasurable—slightly euphoric. And, like life, never to be truly synthesized.

the most precious substance in the universe is the spice Melange…The spice extends life… expands consciousness… gives them the ability to fold space…that is, travel to any part of the universe without moving.

O the irony of desire, always hearkening after the liquid glimmer beyond the distant-most dune. Sometimes only to find that it is no different from the parched sand on which we stood days, months, years ago, in yearning.

I need not remind you that this was David Lynch's version of Dune, in which all of the characters were sexy and deformed at the same time. There was a character called the 3rd Stage Guild Navigator, which was a kind of giant floating fetus creature, that lived in a giant tank, with his orange mist of psychedelic spice swirling around him allowing him to bend space and time. He could never leave the tank or interact with the outside world. He had become, in his isolation, so deformed and so sexy that he had to talk through a kind of old-timey radio to the outside world and could never touch them.

We bribe the Guild with a monstrous payment in spice to keep our skies clear of satellites and such that none may spy what we do to the face of Arrakis.” She

The Harkonnens discouraged investigation of the spice, didn’t they?

The Fremen! They’re paying the Guild for privacy, paying in a coin that’s freely available to anyone with desert power—spice.

If he could smell the pre-spice mass, that meant the gasses deep under the sand were nearing explosive pressure.

They’ve also sent some incidental things—jewelry for the Lady Jessica, spice liquor, candy, medicinals. My men are processing the lot right now.

A smile touched Piter’s lips. “And to think, Baron: the Padishah Emperor believes he’s given the Duke your spice planet. How poignant.

You know the myth of the Great Spice Hoard? Yes, I know about that story, too. A majordomo brought it to me one day to amuse me. The story says there is a hoard of melange, a gigantic hoard, big as a great mountain. The hoard is concealed in the depths of a distant planet. It is not Arrakis, that planet. It is not Dune. The spice was hidden there long ago, even before the First Empire and the Spacing Guild. The story says Paul-Muad’Dib went there and lives yet beside the hoard, kept alive by it, waiting. The majordomo did not understand why the story disturbed me.

Frank went on to tell me that much of the premise of Dune—the magic spice (spores) that allowed the bending of space (tripping), the giant worms (maggots digesting mushrooms), the eyes of the Freman (the cerulean blue of Psilocybe mushrooms), the mysticism of the female spiritual warriors, the Bene Gesserits (influenced by tales of Maria Sabina and the sacred mushroom cults of Mexico)—came from his perception of the fungal life cycle, and his imagination was stimulated through his experiences with the use of magic mushrooms.

Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous “blow” with a dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the surface. The

This Duke was concerned more over the men than he was over the spice. He risked his own life and that of his son to save the men. He passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to men’s lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat. Against his own will and all previous judgments, Kynes admitted to himself: I like this Duke.

Many forces sought control of the Atreides twins and, when the death of Leto was announced, this movement of plot and counterplot was amplified. Note the relative motivations: the Sisterhood feared Alia, an adult Abomination, but still wanted those genetic characteristics carried by the Atreides. The Church hierarchy of Auquaf and Hajj saw only the power implicit in control of Muad'Dib's heir. CHOAM wanted a doorway to the wealth of Dune. Farad'n and his Sardaukar sought a return to glory for House Corrino. The Spacing Guild feared the equation Arrakis=melange; without the spice they could not navigate. Jessica wished to repair what her disobedience to the Bene Gesserit had created. Few thought to ask the twins what their plans might be, until it was too late. -The Book of Kreos

The Spacing Guild has worked for centuries to surround our elite Navigators with mystique. They are revered, from the lowest Pilot to the most talented Steersman. They live in tanks of spice gas, see all paths through space and time, guide ships to the far reaches of the Imperium. But no one knows the human cost of becoming a Navigator. We must keep this a secret, for if they really knew the truth, they would pity us.

Pay attention, Shaddam. Spice is vital, and yet all production is controlled by a single House on a single world. The threat of a bottleneck is enormous, even with Imperial oversight and pressure from CHOAM. For the stability of the Imperium, we need a better source of melange. We should create it synthetically if we have to. We need an alternative.” He turned to the Crown Prince, his dark eyes glittering. “One that’s in our control.

And now we control it?” “To a certain degree. But the important thing is to consider all the Houses that depend on CHOAM profits. And think of the enormous proportion of those profits dependent upon a single product—the spice. Imagine what would happen if something should reduce spice production.” “Whoever had stockpiled melange could make a killing,” Paul said. “Others would be out in the cold.

Without spice, efficient space travel would be impossible … and without space travel, the Imperium itself would fall. Spice prolonged life, protected health, and added a vigor to existence. The Baron, a moderate user himself, greatly appreciated the way it made him feel. Of course, the spice melange was also ferociously addictive, which kept the price high.…

Here the spice was everywhere: in the air, food, garments, wall hangings and rugs. Melange was intertwined with sietch life as much as water.

And holding people planetbound keeps them out of mischief.” “It does something more important than that. It fills them with a longing to travel. It creates a need to make far voyages and see strange things. Eventually, travel comes to mean freedom.” “But the spice dwindles,” she said. “And freedom becomes more precious every day.” “This can only lead to desperation and violence,” she said. “A wise man in my ancestry—I was actually that person, you know? Do you understand that there are no strangers in my past?” She nodded, awed. “This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.

Crystal teeth flashed in the dim light. He saw the yawning mouth-cavern with, far back, the ambient movement of dim flame. The overpowering redolence of the spice swept over him. But the worm had stopped. It remained in front of him as First Moon lifted over the butte. The light reflected off the worm's teeth outlining the faery glow of chemical fires deep within the creature.

She stills all storms- Her eyes kill our enemies, And torment the unbelievers. From the spires of Tuono Where dawnlight strikes And clear water runs, You see her shadow. In the shining summer heat She serves us bread and milk- Cool, fragrant with spices. Her eyes melt our enemies, Torment our oppressors And pierce all mysteries. She is Alia. . . Alia. . . Alia. . .

For this test, though, they fed him increased doses of the spice and he sensed the awakening of his True Self. "The Mind at Its Beginning," a teaching Sister called it when he asked for an explanation of this odd sensation. For a time, the universe was magical as he looked at it through this new awareness. His awareness was a circle, then a globe. Arbitrary forms became transient. He fell into trance state without warning until the Sisters taught him how to control this. They provided him with accounts of saints and mystics and forced him to draw a freehand circle with either hand, following the line with his awareness. By the end of the term, his awareness resumed its touch with conventional labels, but the memory of the magic never left him. He found that memory a source of strength at the most difficult moments.

Time slowed. Nikki could feel every throb of her pulse, every crackle of her nerves as Sef swept away reality with the crush of his lips. His tongue was a flame darting against her own, his breath a billowing gust of incense that filled her nostrils and scorched her lungs. He was spice and cedar, whiskey and warm pumpkin pie. He was the dunes of Egypt and the rising sun, the breeze off the Nile, and the jackals prowling beneath the moon.

Ghanima sensed her brother trembling where he sat in front of her. “What have you done?” she demanded. But he would not leave his own train of revelation. “Fewer sandtrout—the ecological transformation of the planet . . .” “They resist it, of course,” she said, and now she began to understand the fear in his voice, drawn into this thing against her will. “When the sandtrout go, so do all the worms,” he said. “The tribes must be warned.” “No more spice,” she said. Words merely touched high points of the system danger which they both saw hanging over human intrusion into Dune’s ancient relationships. “It’s the thing Alia knows,” he said. “It’s why she gloats.” “How can you be sure of that?” “I’m sure.” Now she knew for certain what disturbed him, and she felt the knowledge chill her. “The tribes won’t believe us if she denies it,” he said. His statement went to the primary problem of their existence: What Fremen expected wisdom from a nine-year-old? Alia, growing farther and farther from her own inner sharing each day, played upon this.

We’re in a dark passage,” he said. “Without spice, the Empire falls apart. The Guild will not move. Planets will slowly lose their clear memories of each other. They’ll turn inward upon themselves. Space will become a boundary when the Guild navigators lose their mastery. We’ll cling to our dunetops and be ignorant of that which is above us and below us.

Is there a relationship between worm and spice?” the Duke asked.

Melange is the financial crux of CHOAM activities. Without this spice, Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers could not perform feats of observation and human control, Guild Navigators could not see safe pathways across space, and billions of Imperial citizens would die of addictive withdrawal. Any simpleton knows that such dependence upon a single commodity leads to abuse. We are all at risk.

Traditionally, Guild Navigators masked their appearance, keeping themselves hidden in thick clouds of spice gas. It was generally believed that the process of becoming a Navigator transformed a person into something other than human, something more evolved. The Guild said nothing to confirm or deny the speculations.

MELANGE: the "spice of spices," the crop for which Arrakis is the unique source. The spice, chiefly noted for its geriatric qualities, is mildly addictive when taken in small quantities, severely addictive when imbibed in quantities above two grams daily per seventy kilos of body weight. (see Ibad, Eyes of; Water of Life; and Pre-spice Mass.) Muad'Dib claimed the spice as a key to his prophetic powers. Guild navigators make similar claims. Its price on the Imperial market has ranged as high as 620,000 solaris the decagram.

Thufir Hawat, his father’s Master of Assassins, had explained it: their mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, had been on Arrakis eighty years, holding the planet in quasi-fief under a CHOAM Company contract to mine the geriatric spice, melange. Now the Harkonnens were leaving to be replaced by the House of Atreides in fief-complete—an apparent victory for the Duke Leto. Yet, Hawat had said, this appearance contained the deadliest peril, for the Duke Leto was popular among the Great Houses of the Landsraad. “A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful,” Hawat had said. Arrakis—Dune—Desert Planet.

How strange that so few people ever looked up from the spice long enough to wonder at the near-ideal nitrogen-oxygen-CO2 balance being maintained here in the absence of large areas of plant cover. The energy sphere of the planet is there to see and understand—a relentless process, but a process nonetheless. There is a gap in it? Then something occupies that gap. Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained. I knew the little maker was there, deep in the sand, long before I ever saw it.

This Duke was concerned more over the men than he was over the spice. He risked his own life and that of his son to save the men. He passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to men’s lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat.

them. Paul slipped out his nose plugs, swung the mouth baffle aside. The odor of the place assailed him: unwashed bodies, distillate esthers of reclaimed wastes, everywhere the sour effluvia of humanity with, over it all, a turbulence of spice and spicelike harmonics.

What do you give me?” All of the bitterness was there and a hint of the spice from her dried food.

He had acted so strangely before they retired, she thought. Withdrawn. He was like one come back from the dead, not yet fully aware of his return, his eyes half shut and glassy with the inward stare. It made her think of his warning about the spice-impregnated diet: addictive.

There was nothing of telepathy here, she knew. It was the tau, the oneness of the sietch community, a compensation from the subtle poison of the spice diet they shared. The great mass of the people could never hope to attain the enlightenment the spice seed brought to her; they had not been trained and prepared for it. Their minds rejected what they could not understand or encompass. Still they felt and reacted sometimes like a single organism.

Oh, I don’t imply that I’ve made my father’s mistake and peered into the future with a glass of spice.

Everything focuses here where the spice is…where they’ve dared not interfere before…because to interfere was to lose what they must have. But now they’re desperate. All paths lead into darkness.

Crystal teeth flashed in the dim light. He saw the yawning mouth-cavern with, far back, the ambient movement of dim flame. The overpowering redolence of the spice swept over him. But the worm had stopped. It remained in front of him as First Moon lifted over the butte. The light reflected off the worm’s teeth outlining the faery glow of chemical fires deep within the creature.