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.

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 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.

A wise man always has something to say, whereas a fool always needs to say something.

It is normal to give away a little of one's life in order not to lose it all.

You do what you want to for Passion, you do what you have to for Obligation.

Black culture is something I don't relate to much at all.

What a bargain grandchildren are! I give them my loose change, and they give me a million dollars' worth of pleasure.

I'd also talk about the period and of course all the different gender things that people might feel that they are. I'd be a terrible teacher because of what I don't know about that.

You don't shoot a dog when it is already dead.

If you seek Jesus in all things you will surely find Jesus. And if you seek yourself, you will surely find yourself, but only to your ruin.

The so-called mysteries of quantum mechanics are in its philosophical interpretation, not in its mathematics.

Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed, an architectural one, where it is constructed, and finally a textile one, where it is woven.