I was thinking about what I wanted to write next, after my first novel, and had decided that I wanted to write a story with a lot of strong female characters in it.

And so The Snow Queen also became a story about the need to seek equilibrium, in our own lives, with the natural world, even within the universe at large.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death.

Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don't stand a chance against it.

The ecosystem of our world is a closed system: it would run out of gas, collapse of its own weight.

Throughout the ages, stories with certain basic themes have recurred over and over, in widely disparate cultures; emerging like the goddess Venus from the sea of our unconscious.

For every path you choose, there is another you must abandon, usually forever.

Studying anthropology, I developed a kind of holistic view of human existence, in which the dichotomies you listed are all necessary and vital aspects of life.

Archaeology is the anthropology of the past, and science fiction is the anthropology of the future.

Here was a fragment of Goddess myth that, through all its permutations, had somehow escaped being turned on its head. It was the perfect springboard for the sort of novel I wanted to write.

But our society does not grant nontraditional forms of intelligence equal recognition, no matter how much it would help us get along or truly enrich our lives.

Don't plead with anyone if you were not at fault, you'll only look inferior, stupid and funny, bolster your ego by doing the undoing.

Secularism breeds narcissism. There is nothing higher to live for, so you live for you

Endings are not our destiny...They are merely interruptions-temporary pauses that one day will seem small compared to the eternal joy awaiting the faithful.

Memory is the most transient of all possessions. And when it goes, it leaves as few traces as stars that have disappeared.

I'm not turned on, so put away that meat you're selling.

A new gadget that lasts only five minutes is worth more than an immortal work that bores everyone.

A leader can't dash ahead around the bend out of sight.

In medicine, uncertainty is the water we swim in.

Free from attachments to the past and worries about the future, a child expresses him/herself fully.

I think that it's a great time to be a designer.