World Eater

“It hadn’t worked out that way. Even if we’d outgrown the need to stay quiet and hidden during the dark hours—the only predators left were those we’d brought back ourselves—the brain still needed time apart from the world outside. Experiences had to be catalogued and filed, midterm memories promoted to long-term ones, free radicals swept from their hiding places among the dendrites. We had only reduced the need for sleep, not eliminated it—and that incompressible residue of downtime seemed barely able to contain the dreams and phantoms left behind. They squirmed in my head like creatures in a draining tidal pool.”
― Peter Watts, Blindsight

“Creation is a nightmare spectacular taking place on a planet that has been soaked for hundreds of millions of years in the blood of all its creatures.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

“No legal system can maintain justice unless every participant — magisters, prosecutors, Legums, defendants, witnesses, all — risks life itself in whatever dispute comes before the bar. Everything must be risked in the Courtarena. If any element remains outside the contest and without personal risk, justice inevitably fails.
— Gowachin Law”
― Frank Herbert, The Dosadi Experiment

“The best art imitates life in a compelling way. If it imitates a dream, it must be a dream of life. Otherwise, there is no place where we can connect. Our plugs don't fit.”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune