Joan D. Vinge

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“Myth is, after all, the neverending story.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”