Women Singers

"[Of a medical examination and being diagnosed by a physician] He stuck a camera down my throat....ew... I GAGGED! It was kinda funny though.....he said I have "Acute Laryngitis"."

"I'm the best damn thing that your eyes have ever seen."

"I know my fans look up to me and that's why I make my songs so personal; it's all about things I've experienced and things I like or hate. I write for myself and hope that my fans like what I have to say."

"I’m on a vegan diet, I do yoga every day, I work out, I’m totally spiritual — I’m completely opposite of what everyone thinks I am right now."

"Some chick came up to me and said something, so I kicked her in the box and shoved her."

"She wants to go home, but nobody's home. It's where she lies, broken inside."

"My butt-crack showing is like my trademark. I wear my pants loose, and lately Ive been so busy I've lost a few pounds. My ass-crack is always showing!"

"You know, it's ironic that just at the point the lawyers and the businessmen had calculated how to control music, the Internet comes along and fucks everything up." Björk gives the finger again, this time waving it into the air. "God bless the Internet," she adds. And what about you, then? "I'll still be there, waving a pirate flag."

"The thing about making [Dancer in the Dark] 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[s] 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 [so] 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."

"She has a weird energy about her as a woman. We were in this town to do a show, and she spread such positive vibes. There were birds singing, and rainbows; we could even see a tornado going on. We could actually see it! … I think that every artist has an aura and persona that develops, and Björk spreads such a positive energy. You can just feel it."

"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."

"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."

"Declare independence Don't let them do that to you ... Start your own currency Make your own stamp Protect your language"

"You have done Good for yourselves Since you left my wet embrace And crawled ashore … My sons and my daughters Ho-oh Your sweat is salty I am why"

"When in doubt, give."

"Oh thou that bowest Thy ecstatic face Thy perfect sorrows Are the world's to keep Wherefore onto thy knees Come we With a prayer"

"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 dare you to take me on I dare you to show me your palms I'm so bored of cowards who say they want (love) Then they can't handle love"

"Emotional landscapes They puzzle me The riddle gets solved and you push me up to This state of emergency How beautiful to be State of emergency Is where I want to be"

"You'll be given love You'll be taken care of You'll be given love You have to trust it"

"I'm no fucking Buddhist But this is enlightenment The less room you give me (Happiness) The more space I've got It doesn't scare me at all"

"I want to go on a mountaintop With a radio and good batteries And play a joyous tune And free the Human Race From suffering (saccharine)"

"I thought I could organize freedom How Scandinavian of me"

"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"

"I'm a fountain of blood In the shape of a girl … Leave me now, return tonight Tide will show you the way If you forget my name You will go astrayLike a killer whaleTrapped in a bay"

"I'm back at my cliff Still throwing things off I listen to the sounds they make On their way down I follow with my eyes 'til they crash Imagine what my body would sound like Slamming against those rocks And when it lands Will my eyes Be closed or open?"

"His wicked sense of humour suggests exciting sex His fingers focus on her Her touches He's Venus as a boy"

"There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic To human behaviour … There's no map And a compass Wouldn't help at all"

"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."

"It's interesting for me to bring up a girl. You go to the toy store and the female characters there—Cinderella, the lady in Beauty and the Beast—their major task is to find Prince Charming. And I'm like, wait a minute, it's 2005! We've fought so hard to have a say, and not just live through our partners, and yet you're still seeing two-year-old girls with this message pushed at them that the only important thing is to find this amazing dress so that the guy will want you. It's something my mum pointed out to me when I was little—so much [so] that I almost threw up; but, she's right."

"But, but, these are the people that made the Busby Berkeley movies, yeah? So they're not exactly subtle."

"Everyone is bisexual: I’ve always had as many powerful, creative ladies in my life as I have men, and you could probably describe some of those relationships as romantic. I think everyone's bisexual to some degree or another. It's just a question of whether or not you choose to recognise it and embrace it. Personally, I think choosing between men and women is like choosing between cake and ice cream: You'd be daft not to try both when there are so many different flavours."

"I don't like records that are the same from beginning to end, that are too styled and slick. Everything is so designed and airbrushed and Botoxed, it makes us think, 'Oh, everybody's perfect except me. Everything's smooth except me.' But nothing is smooth."

"I am grateful grapefruit."

"It's so amazing when people tell me that … electronic music has not got soul. And they blame the computers. They got the finger pointed at the computers like, "There's no soul here." … You can't blame the computer. If there's not soul in the music, it's because nobody put it there. And it's not the tool's fault."

"A happy woman is one who has no cares at all; a cheerful woman is one who has cares but doesn't let them get her down."

"A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment."

"Anger begins with folly, and ends with repentance."

"Attachment to spiritual things is... just as much an attachment as inordinate love of anything else."

"Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality."

"Christians should never fail to sense the operation of an angelic glory. It forever eclipses the world of demonic powers, as the sun does a candle's light."

"You don't always get what you ask for, but you never get what you don't ask for... unless it's contagious!"

"In youth, we run into difficulties. In old age, difficulties run into us."

"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."

"I really do believe I can accomplish a great deal with a big grin, I know some people find that disconcerting, but that doesn't matter."

"I needed to sing — desperately. My voice poured out more easily because I was no longer singing for anyone's approval; I was beyond caring about the public's reaction, I just wanted to enjoy myself. … I had found a kind of serenity, a new maturity, as a result of my childrens' problems. I didn't feel better or stronger than anyone else but it seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not — more important now was for me to love them. Feeling that way turns your whole life around; living becomes the act of giving."

"Art is the signature of civilizations."

"My voice had a long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can still do what it used to do. It can't."

"I've always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up. I'm not about to change now."