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

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.

Steven Fry on The Da Vinci Code-"It is complete loose stoolwater. It is arse-gravy of the worst kind.

It is a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.

Tragedy is like a strong acid - it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.

I am inspired by many people. First and foremost, I'm inspired by my mother. She definitely helped her children to feel unconditional love and I want to be that same kind of mother.

If the people speak and the king doesn't listen, there is something wrong with the king. If the kings acts precipitously and the people say nothing, something is wrong with the people.

Vehicle emissions standards directly sparked the development and application of a wide range of automotive technologies that are now found throughout the global automobile market.

Is puppy love the reason so many Americans are blind to the incompetence and waste of Republicans - who at a minimum are supposed to be good money managers - running Iraq reconstruction?

I thought of myself as kind of an anarchist all my whole adult life, from the days when I was 15 or 16.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't as conscious as I am. It would be so much easier.

The causes of life's history [cannot] resolve the riddle of life's meaning.