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.

I'm just like anybody. I have my ups and downs.

I get highs, to be totally honest, in second-hand shops. My hunting instinct, I expect, really kicks in.

I mostly write on my own, walking, outside.

I bought a laptop in 1999, and it was quite liberating, because I could make a lot of my own decisions.

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!

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.

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.

I love hiking in Iceland most, there are lots of brilliant paths.

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.

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.

I do try and wear stuff by unknown designers, and I make sure I pay because if nothing else I have money.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I am one of the most idiosyncratic people around.

I get obsessed by little nerdy things in my corner that no one else is interested in.

I love being a very personal singer-songwriter, but I also like being a scientist or explorer.

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.

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

If nothing else, I have money.

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.

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

Nature has always been important to me. It has always been in my music.

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.

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.

Come on, I'm from Iceland; I don't do hip-hop.

There is such a big chunk of me that is David Attenborough. I think he is my biggest inspiration.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

There is this stereotype of Icelanders all believing in spirits, and I've played up to that a bit in interviews.

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.

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.

I went through an anti-Establishment phase and thought we should get everything for free.

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.

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.

While you're setting something up that's educational for yourself, you have an opportunity to teach others at the same time.

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.

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.

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.

It would be flattering to be thought of as someone who celebrated life.

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.

Nature is our chapel.

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.