Friendship is unnecessary like philosophy like art... It has no survival value rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

When I write now I do not invent situation characters or actions but rather structures and discursive forms textual groupings which are combined according to secret affinities among themselves as in architecture or the plastic arts.

Until the Eighties Oslo was a rather boring town but it's changed a lot and is now much more cosmopolitan. If I go downtown I visit the harbour to see the tall ships and the ferries and to admire the modern architecture such as the Opera House or the new Astrup Fearnley Museum on the water's edge.

I left science then I went into art but I approach things very analytically. I choose to pursue both art and architecture as completely separate fields rather than merging them.

I did that Dior Couture 60th anniversary show in July. It took so long to get ready I think I would have rather been watching.

Because society would rather we always wore a pretty face women have been trained to cut off anger.

All through life I've harbored anger rather than expressed it at the moment.

It's amazing that you can listen to any song and you can always tell when there's some substance beneath it and when there isn't. Even if it's poetically written and technically brilliant I'd rather hear something that's all over the place but has some soul to it.

The attitude is we live and let live. This is actually an amazing change in values in a rather short time and it's an example of freedom from religion.

We are really on top of one another at the moment and I think it is amazing how we stay so close. Maybe that's the test. Why not totally put yourself together rather than always wonder whether you actually like each other?

I would rather be alone and a loud voice for action than be silent.

A singer for me is more like someone who is standing alone with a microphone like Scott Walker rather than someone who is bashing a plank and is spitting all over a microphone.

I like singer-songwriters and I find sad songs comforting rather than depressing. It makes you realise you're not alone in the world.

We are not to give credit to the many who say that none ought to be educated but the free but rather to the philosophers who say that the well-educated alone are free.

Communication is a continual balancing act juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world we have to act in concert with others but to survive as ourselves rather than simply as cogs in a wheel we have to act alone.

Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.

I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married.