History shows us that the songs - the myth, the experience and the emotion - live longer the less you explain.

Sometimes you make a record that is what you want to hear. I've made a couple of those, idealized creations of what I wanted to hear. Then there are records that are what you feel.

I've come more to terms with the fact that I sound like myself. No matter what I do, I sound like myself.

People need to put my music in a perspective where they use other established artists from the past, and almost all the names I see related to my music are great musicians.

You know, I play in small, intimate venues; I'm not an arena performer.

There's a lot of crappy music that people like, you know, all over the world, and Norway is definitely not an exception.

Sometimes, you can't seem to find any song on the radio that you like.

I work with really cool people, and so far I haven't been approached in any embarrassing manner when it comes to image.

I usually enter the studio with a mix of songs that I've been listening to that are relevant to the sound I want to achieve.

I started trying to write songs when I was 8 or 9 years old.

I feel, in a way, on a record, you can be more subtle. In the live setting, everything gets amplified. The dynamics are more extreme in concert.

God is found in the collection of Many. . . rather than in the One.

What brought mass innovation to a nation was not scientific advances - its own or others' - but 'economic dynamism': the desire and the space to innovate.

Ronald Reagan's well documented final battles with Alzheimer's disease were fought with the same conviction and courage that his many public battles were fought.

I've been estranged from my father since I was eight.

I hear this all the time: 'Obama's policies aren't working.' He hasn't been allowed to put his policies into place.

If I've done anything I'm sorry for, I'm willing to be forgiven.

I want to wear skinny jeans when I'm in my 70s. Why not? Who cares?

Pain is inevitable, suffering is not.

There is a part of me that is not fulfilled by acting. It is a self-involved life; it can feel shallow, but not very often.

I want my music to leave an indelible mark.