“Singing is like a celebration of oxygen.”
― Bjork
“I always wanted to be a farmer. There is a tradition of that in my family.”
― Bjork
“I’m a fountain of blood. In the shape of a girl.”
― Bjork
“I have written most of my melodies walking and I feel it is definitely one of the most helpful ways of sewing all of the different things in your life together and seeing the whole picture.”
― Bjork
“Seventy per cent humidity is ideal for vocal cords.”
― Bjork
“I get highs, to be totally honest, in second-hand shops. My hunting instinct, I expect, really kicks in.”
― Bjork
“Usually when you see females in movies, they feel like they have these metallic structures around them, they are caged in by male energy.”
― Bjork
“With a small town mentality, you make a decision very early on as to whether you are going to do everything by the book or just go your own way and not care.”
― Bjork
“I do believe sometimes discipline is very important. I’m not just lying around like a lazy cow all the time.”
― Bjork
“Football is a fertility festival. Eleven sperm trying to get into the egg. I feel sorry for the goalkeeper.”
― Bjork
“There’s no map to human behaviour.”
― Bjork
“I do love one-upmanship sometimes, like when you see kids breakdancing and who can do the best tricks. It’s common, it’s in our nature as animals, like the birds of paradise who’ve got the best feathers and that sort of stuff. But it’s fun when it’s impulsive and it’s about fun.”
― Bjork
“I am a grateful… grapefruit.”
― Bjork
“Nature is our chapel.”
― Bjork
“I get obsessed by little nerdy things in my corner that no one else is interested in.”
― Bjork
“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.”
― Bjork
“I bought a laptop in 1999, and it was quite liberating, because I could make a lot of my own decisions.”
― Bjork
“People that complete other people’s vision are understated.”
― Bjork
“I feel the 21st century is another new age. Not only can we collaborate again with nature, but we have to. It’s an emergency.”
― Bjork
“I’m just like anybody. I have my ups and downs.”
― Bjork
“It would be flattering to be thought of as someone who celebrated life.”
― Bjork
“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.”
― Bjork
“In Reykjavik, Iceland, where I was born, you are in the middle of nature surrounded by mountains and ocean. But you are still in a capital in Europe. So I have never understood why I have to choose between nature or urban.”
― Bjork
“Nature hasn’t gone anywhere. It is all around us, all the planets, galaxies and so on. We are nothing in comparison.”
― Bjork
“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.”
― Bjork
“In ’96, I was in a very specific place with my own music – I was only listening to beats. You would come to my house, and I would just play beats all day.”
― Bjork
“I guess I’m quite used to not being understood rather than being understood.”
― Bjork
“I feel like the people from Iceland have a different relationship with their country than other places. Most Icelandic people are really proud to be from there, and we don’t have embarrassments like World War II where we were cruel to other people.”
― Bjork
“I am one of the most idiosyncratic people around.”
― Bjork
“Feminists bore me to death. I follow my instinct and if that supports young girls in any way, great. But I’d rather they saw it more as a lesson about following their own instincts rather than imitating somebody.”
― Bjork
“I’ve always appreciated working with people I have chemistry with, who are friends, and where you feel that the work is growing while you are getting to know each other better.”
― Bjork
“But 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.”
― Bjork
“As a singer-songwriter, what I do is write about how the human feels.”
― Bjork
“I think every year brings unknowns that you have to deal with and handle, confront and embrace.”
― Bjork
“The reason I do photographs is to help people understand my music, so it’s very important that I am the same, emotionally, in the photographs as in the music. Most people’s eyes are much better developed than their ears. If they see a certain emotion in the photograph, then they’ll understand the music.”
― Bjork
“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!”
― Bjork
“We didn’t really have television when I was a kid. Around 30, I discovered films and started systematically catching up. I collect interesting documentaries and films, and watch a few nights a week.”
― Bjork
“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.”
― Bjork
“Living in a capital in Europe but still surrounded by mountains and ocean, my relationship to music was strongest walking to school and back. I would sing to myself and very quickly started mapping out my melodies to landscapes – at the time I just thought it was very matter of fact, a common thing to do.”
― Bjork
“People are always asking me about eskimos, but there are no eskimos in Iceland.”
― Bjork
“When I was a punk teenager, I rebelled because lots of people in Iceland think that foreigners are evil and that if you don’t wear woolen hats and eat sheep, you’re betraying your heritage.”
― Bjork
“When I was a teenager in Iceland people would throw rocks and shout abuse at me because they thought I was weird. I never got that in London no matter what I wore.”
― Bjork
“There is this stereotype of Icelanders all believing in spirits, and I’ve played up to that a bit in interviews.”
― Bjork
“The reason I do interviews is because I’m protecting my songs.”
― Bjork
“The English can be a very critical, unforgiving people, but criticism can be good. And this is a country that loves comedy.”
― Bjork
“Now that rock is turning 50, it’s become classical in itself. It’s interesting to see that development.”
― Bjork
“Maybe I’ll be a feminist in my old age.”
― Bjork
“It’s incredible how nature sets females up to take care of people, and yet it is tricky for them to take care of themselves.”
― Bjork
“It’s funny how the hippies and the punks tried to get rid of the conservatives, but they always seem to get the upper hand in the end.”
― Bjork
“If nothing else, I have money.”
― Bjork
“I’m not going to talk like I know about politics, because I’m a total amateur, but maybe I can be a spokesperson for people who aren’t normally interested in politics.”
― Bjork
“I’m a bit of a nerd, I wouldn’t mind working in a shop selling records, or having a radio show where I could play obscure singles.”
― Bjork
“I’d done three solo albums in a row, and that’s quite narcissistic.”
― Bjork
“I would like to teach music. It’s weird the way they teach music in schools like Julliard these days.”
― Bjork
“I sometimes fall into the trap of doing what I think I should be doing rather than what I want to be doing.”
― Bjork
“I love England. It’s no coincidence it’s the first place I moved to for a more cosmopolitan life, which is the only thing Iceland lacks.”
― Bjork
“I love being a very personal singer-songwriter, but I also like being a scientist or explorer.”
― Bjork
“I get embarrassed listening to my last CDs. I’ve got a lot of work to do, let’s put it that way.”
― Bjork
“For a person as obsessed with music as I am, I always hear a song in the back of my head, all the time, and that usually is my own tune. I’ve done that all my life.”
― Bjork
“Compared to America or Europe, God isn’t a big part of our lives here. I don’t know anyone here who goes to church when he’s had a rough divorce or is going through depression. We go out into nature instead.”
― Bjork
“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.”
― Bjork
“I’ve been traveling in Guatemala in the rainforest, and here all these houses are made of sticks. It seems so easy to make one.”
― Bjork
“I do try and wear stuff by unknown designers, and I make sure I pay because if nothing else I have money.”
― Bjork
“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.”
― Bjork
“In 2008, I was more just thinking about using the touchscreen for writing the songs. From there I started thinking about how I visualised music.”
― Bjork
“I love hiking in Iceland most, there are lots of brilliant paths.”
― Bjork
“There’s something about the rhythm of walking, how, after about an hour and a half, the mind and body can’t help getting in sync.”
― Bjork
“Being a musician is very easy. My house is full of musical instruments. There’s a lot of music, always.”
― Bjork
“Sometimes, when I have a lot of ideas and I want to do a lot of things, or when I’m traveling, I lose energy and I can’t do as many things as I want. So I have to plan days when I’m not doing anything. I find that a bit boring, but it’s necessary.”
― Bjork
“I don’t expect people to get me. That would be quite arrogant. I think there are a lot of people out there in the world that nobody gets.”
― Bjork
“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.”
― Bjork
“What probably confuses people is they know a lot about me, but it quite pleases me that there’s more they don’t know.”
― Bjork
“When I was 20, political music was the uncoolest thing on earth.”
― Bjork
“I mostly write on my own, walking, outside.”
― Bjork
“I find most children quite inspiring.”
― Bjork
“Most Icelandic people are really proud to be from there, and we don’t have embarrassments like World War II where we were cruel to other people. We don’t even have an army. So it’s sort of like an all-around good, innocent place.”
― Bjork
“Maybe it’s just a personal thing, but I get so much grounding from Iceland because I know it’s always going to be there. I have a very happy, healthy relationship with the country, so it’s really easy to go everywhere because I always have Iceland to go back to.”
― Bjork
“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.”
― Bjork
“While you’re setting something up that’s educational for yourself, you have an opportunity to teach others at the same time.”
― Bjork
“I went through an anti-Establishment phase and thought we should get everything for free.”
― Bjork
“I think religion is a mistake – I’m exhausted by its self-righteousness. I think atheists should start screaming for attention like religious folks do.”
― Bjork
“The funeral business is so manipulative emotionally. I would want to be thrown into the sea or burned – something that’s not a big hassle.”
― Bjork
“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.”
― Bjork
“Nature has always been important to me. It has always been in my music.”
― Bjork
“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.”
― Bjork
“I went to music school, and I guess I was a difficult, know-it-all type of student.”
― Bjork
“The good thing about Pro Tools is you can actually hear what you’re working on, so it doesn’t just become this intellectual idea. But Pro Tools can be dangerous, too. It can make things sterile.”
― Bjork
“With my projects, I really like the extreme high-tech stuff, but I also like the other end, the acoustic things. So it seems like those meet on an iPad, where you make shapes but the sounds coming out of it are really acoustic.”
― Bjork
“Most people in Iceland are blonde and blue-eyed. I was nicknamed ‘China girl’ in school ‘cos they thought I looked Asian.”
― Bjork
“In elections in Iceland, I have always been an abstainer. It seems like politics is such a small bundle of self-important people, who don’t have much to do with things I’m interested in.”
― Bjork
“There is such a big chunk of me that is David Attenborough. I think he is my biggest inspiration.”
― Bjork
“The English eat all sorts of birds – pigeons, ducks, sparrows – but if you tell them you eat puffin, you might as well come from Mars.”
― Bjork
“Come on, I’m from Iceland; I don’t do hip-hop.”
― Bjork
“I started an all-girl punk band when I was 14, and I was the drummer, not the singer.”
― Bjork
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