Bjork

“I went to music school, and I guess I was a difficult, know-it-all type of student.”

“The English can be a very critical, unforgiving people, but criticism can be good. And this is a country that loves comedy.”

“When I met Apple, I made it very clear that I am an old punk and I have never done commercials or been sponsored. And I wasn't after their money.”

“A lot of the time I get obsessed by little nerdy things in my corner that no one else is interested in. I have that nerd factor in my character.”

“Believe it or not, I'm a bit clumsy with technology. It's probably why I'm so excited about the touchscreen - even an idiot can use it!”

“In order to actually have a touchscreen in front of me and somehow still be connected to nature, I needed to be able to incorporate natural elements into the song structures. Because that's always been my song-writing accompaniment: nature.”

“I think connecting natural elements and musicology is probably pretty idiosyncratic of me, so it is hard to imagine anyone else going down that route.”

“My first album didn't come out until I was 27, which in pop years is late, you know. But when it came time to arrange it, I became a kid in a toy shop. I had a harp and a saxophone quartet and a symphony orchestra. I went berserk for a time.”

“Part of me is probably more conservative than people realise. I like my old string quartets, I don't like music that's trippy for trippy's sake.”

“People are always asking me about eskimos, but there are no eskimos in Iceland.”

“Sometimes when I write lyrics there are images in them, usually on a quite simplistic level, like colors. But most often music comes first and then later I sit down with visual people and we chat about what we want to do. I don't look at myself as a visual artist. I make music.”

“Now that rock is turning 50, it's become classical in itself. It's interesting to see that development.”

“Solar power, wind power, the way forward is to collaborate with nature - it's the only way we are going to get to the other end of the 21st century.”

“Football is a fertility festival. Eleven sperm trying to get into the egg. I feel sorry for the goalkeeper.”

“I'm not interested in politics. I lose interest the microsecond it ceases to be emotional, when something becomes a political movement. What I'm interested in is emotions.”

“I mostly write on my own, walking, outside.”

“Since I was a kid, I always wanted to figure out how to make a bass line that was a pendulum - like, gravity would control it, and then you could make it play different notes.”

“I'd done three solo albums in a row, and that's quite narcissistic.”

“I do believe sometimes discipline is very important. I'm not just lying around like a lazy cow all the time.”

“I always wanted to be a farmer. There is a tradition of that in my family.”