A clear conscience is generally the result of a faulty memory, not a faulty life.

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

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.

Myth is, after all, the neverending story.

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.

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

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.