“A lot of the time I get obsessed by little nerdy things in my corner that no one else is interested in. I have that nerd factor in my character.”

“As a singer-songwriter, what I do is write about how the human feels.”

“Being a musician is very easy. My house is full of musical instruments. There's a lot of music, always.”

“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!”

“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.”

“Compared to America or Europe, God isn't a big part of our lives here. I don't know anyone here who goes to church when he's had a rough divorce or is going through depression. We go out into nature instead.”

“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.”

“Football is a fertility festival. Eleven sperm trying to get into the egg. I feel sorry for the goalkeeper.”

“For a person as obsessed with music as I am, I always hear a song in the back of my head, all the time, and that usually is my own tune. I've done that all my life.”

“I always wanted to be a farmer. There is a tradition of that in my family.”

“I am a grateful... grapefruit.”

“I am one of the most idiosyncratic people around.”

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

“I do believe sometimes discipline is very important. I'm not just lying around like a lazy cow all the time.”

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

“I don't expect people to get me. That would be quite arrogant. I think there are a lot of people out there in the world that nobody gets.”

“I feel like the people from Iceland have a different relationship with their country than other places. 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.”

“I feel the 21st century is another new age. Not only can we collaborate again with nature, but we have to. It's an emergency.”

“I find most children quite inspiring.”

“I get embarrassed listening to my last CDs. I've got a lot of work to do, let's put it that way.”

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

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

“I guess I'm quite used to not being understood rather than being understood.”

“I have written most of my melodies walking and I feel it is definitely one of the most helpful ways of sewing all of the different things in your life together and seeing the whole picture.”

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

“I mostly write on my own, walking, outside.”

“I sometimes fall into the trap of doing what I think I should be doing rather than what I want to be doing.”

“I started an all-girl punk band when I was 14, and I was the drummer, not the singer.”

“I think every year brings unknowns that you have to deal with and handle, confront and embrace.”

“I would like to teach music. It's weird the way they teach music in schools like Julliard these days.”

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

“If nothing else, I have money.”

“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.”

“I'm a fountain of blood. In the shape of a girl.”

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

“I'm not going to talk like I know about politics, because I'm a total amateur, but maybe I can be a spokesperson for people who aren't normally interested in politics.”

“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.”

“In '96, I was in a very specific place with my own music - I was only listening to beats. You would come to my house, and I would just play beats all day.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I've been traveling in Guatemala in the rainforest, and here all these houses are made of sticks. It seems so easy to make one.”

“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.”

“Maybe I'll be a feminist in my old age.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Nature hasn't gone anywhere. It is all around us, all the planets, galaxies and so on. We are nothing in comparison.”

“Nature is our chapel.”

“Now that rock is turning 50, it's become classical in itself. It's interesting to see that development.”

“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.”

“People are always asking me about eskimos, but there are no eskimos in Iceland.”

“People that complete other people's vision are understated.”

“Seventy per cent humidity is ideal for vocal cords.”

“Singing is like a celebration of oxygen.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“The reason I do interviews is because I'm protecting my songs.”

“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.”

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

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

“There's no map to human behaviour.”

“There's something about the rhythm of walking, how, after about an hour and a half, the mind and body can't help getting in sync.”

“Usually when you see females in movies, they feel like they have these metallic structures around them, they are caged in by male energy.”

“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.”

“What probably confuses people is they know a lot about me, but it quite pleases me that there's more they don't know.”

“When I met Apple, I made it very clear that I am an old punk and I have never done commercials or been sponsored. And I wasn't after their money.”

“When I was 20, political music was the uncoolest thing on earth.”

“When I was a teenager in Iceland people would throw rocks and shout abuse at me because they thought I was weird. I never got that in London no matter what I wore.”

“With a small town mentality, you make a decision very early on as to whether you are going to do everything by the book or just go your own way and not care.”