The mers were also designed to reproduce only at long intervals, in order to maintain the natural balance of the environment in which they were placed.

Humans may be the only creatures on Earth who spend significant time thinking about the fact that someday their lives will end.

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.

The futures and ultimate fates of the characters in The Snow Queen are profoundly changed by choices made in their own minds or hearts, as well as choices unexpectedly forced on them by things beyond their control.

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.

Beyond that, I seem to be compelled to write science fiction, rather than fantasy or mysteries or some other genre more likely to climb onto bestseller lists even though I enjoy reading a wide variety of literature, both fiction and nonfiction.

Besides, wouldn't it be wonderful if no one ever had to worry about the random cruelty of fatal illness or the woes of old age attacking them or their loved ones?

These days too many of us seem inclined to cover our ears, close our eyes, and blindly follow the most narrow, conservative tenets of religion; or else seek comfort in the ancient traditions of New Age ritual.

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

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.

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.

Everything born has to die, in order to make room for the future.

Perhaps the thing that makes humans truly unique on Earth is that we are never satisfied with our situation; maybe that is what's taken us so far.

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.

What does immortality mean to me? That we all want more time; and we want it to be quality time.

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

Myth is, after all, the neverending story.

As for the historical inspirations I drew on in writing The Snow Queen, I suppose I would call them more cross-cultural inspirations, though they frequently involve past societies as well as present day ones.

There's no such thing as a free lunch, at least on the karmic level.

We are all born with a unique genetic blueprint, which lays out the basic characteristics of our personality as well as our physical health and appearance... And yet, we all know that life experiences do change us.

Moon is also a naive native girl when she sets out for Carbuncle.

Probably I chose immortality because mortality is a universal human obsession.

Each time, storytellers clothed the naked body of the myth in their own traditions, so that listeners could relate more easily to its deeper meaning.

Humans are upsetting a fragile balance that their own human ancestors established.

The contradictions are what make human behavior so maddening and yet so fascinating, all at the same time.

Fear of the unknown is a terrible fear.

What I do not want to write is didactic political tracts.

The mers were also designed to reproduce only at long intervals, in order to maintain the natural balance of the environment in which they were placed.

I wanted to show those characters discovering it is possible to find common ground, as they make their way through a plotline that I hope is engrossing enough to keep the reader a willing participant.

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.

The contradictions are what make human behavior so maddening and yet so fascinating all at the same time.

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

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

I believe as human beings we are out of balance, out of synch with the earth.

But all the money in the world cannot make you happy either, so there has to be a balance.

In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power, unrestricted and unregulated armaments, international anarchy, and preparation for war.

But if you can create an honorable livelihood, where you take your skills and use them and you earn a living from it, it gives you a sense of freedom and allows you to balance your life the way you want.

And Big Night, I think by the end the brothers find that balance, when they touch each other on the shoulder over breakfast and it's understood that what should never have driven them apart almost drove them apart. I think that's a true moment.

Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.

In 1844, there was a balance of perhaps of a couple of thousand dollars on the cr side.

You need a balance in life between dealing with what's going on inside and not being so absorbed in yourself that it takes over.

We believe, in fact, that the one act of respect has little force unless matched by the other - in balance with it... The acting out of that dual respect I would name as precisely the source of our power.

You can't have too much of everything, you must have a balance, that's very important.

I've watched those shows my whole life - being on one is like a dream. It's hard to balance that dream with the fact that this is the Edie I've known my whole life.

Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.

I think what I'm going to do is get more balance in my life to still be able to go out and play the hard rock 'n' roll and do what I like to do in music.

We have managed to acquire $13 trillion of debt on our balance sheet. In my view we have nothing to show for it. We haven't invested in our roads, our bridges, our waste-water systems, our sewer systems. We haven't even maintained the assets that our parents and grandparents built for us.

I balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death.

It sounds extraordinary but it's a fact that balance sheets can make fascinating reading.