Björk Quotes (1965-)

“It's a big question. Getting rid of religion would be a good start, wouldn't it? It seems to be causing a lot of havoc.”

“There's definitely, definitely, definitely, no logic to human behaviour . . . There's no map And a compass Wouldn't help at all”

“If travel is searching And home what's been found I'm not stopping I'm going hunting I'm the hunter I'll bring back the goods But I don't know when”

“He offers a handshake, crooked five fingers They form a pattern yet to be matched On the surface simplicity But the darkest pit in me is pagan poetry”

“I was talking to a friend about it recently and I told him that the thing about making that film that upset me most was how cruel Lars is to the woman he is working with. Not that I can't take it, because I'm pretty tough and completely capable of defending myself, but because my ideals of the ultimate creator were shattered. And my friend said "What did you expect? All major directors are "sexist", a maker is not necessarily an expert in human rights or female/male equality! My answer was that you can take quite sexist film directors like Woody Allen or Stanley Kubrick and still they are the one that provide the soul to their movies. In Lars von Trier's case it is not so and he knows it. He needs a female to provide his work soul. And he envies them and hates them for it. So he has to destroy them during the filming. And hide the evidence. What saves him as an artist, though, is that he is so painfully honest that even though he will manage to cover up his crime in the "real" world (he is a genius to set things up that everybody thinks it is just his female-actress-at-the-moment imagination, that she is just hysterical or pre-menstrual), his films become a documentation of this "soul-robbery". Breaking the Waves is the clearest example of that.”

“To me, Kate Bush will always represent the age of exploring your sexuality, when you change from a girl to a woman. I guess that's what I found fascinating about Kate, she totally stuck out. She created her own look and sound. There's a timelessness to her music.”

“For my generation, Stockhausen's published lectures had unbelievable impact. He was the most hopeful of figures: the 21st century was going to be great. The classical teachers in my school, meanwhile, kept moaning about the good old days of music and changing the masses of music pupils into slave performers, putting to sleep any creative thought or the will to make new things.”

“Dolly’s big in Iceland. Her voice is immaculate, really powerful. Her character is so warm and human, and she has a great sense of humor. All my friends love Dolly, and most of them are people who would never listen to country music. It doesn’t happen very often when you get a character that is sort of larger than life. I don’t like rock music, but I like Kurt Cobain. He could be playing any style of music and I would have been interested. You know? And I think Dolly is like that. She is an incredible singer, an incredible songwriter.”

“Do not fuck with Björk! Björk will beat your ass! … I saw Björk beat this woman's ass one time in this videotape. She was in the Bangkok Airport and she was pushing her luggage cart, and this woman came up and just touched her, and Björk went [roars and hisses]. And it was so scary because you didn't expect it at all, because Björk is so cute. … And Björk called the woman she attacked afterwards to apologize. 'I'm very sorry I tried to pull your eyes up over your head. Somebody must have fed me after midnight.' But Björk wore the best dress ever to the Oscars ever: She wore a swan. And I'm not talking about a dress with white feathers on it. Oh, no. She rocked the whole bird. The beak was up here and shit. And she accessorized it with an egg. What else you gon' wear with your bird? And all of the fashion magazines said she was the worst dressed, but when they say you're the worst, that means you're the best.”

“I … thought about all the artists that I really respected and liked. They were just them. … They're people who always stuck to who they were, and were true and honest about who they were. So, I think that kind of gave me … confidence to just stick at it. Just thinking about people like Björk. You know? [Like] Bob Dylan … artists that truly were strong in themselves.”