‘I get turned on by nature’: Björk’s most Björk-like quotes

It’s Björk’s birthday today! (November 21) Like Madonna and Prince before her, her mononym has come to mean something entirely in its own right: weird, wonderful, never doing or saying what’s expected.

This week, the Icelandic icon releases her new album ‘Utopia’ – one that she describes as her “Tinder album”. Before we get to actually hear that, let’s look back at the best – and most Björk-like – things she’s ever spouted, from the sex appeal of nature to possibly the best description of football ever uttered.

1On her best music:

"I sing the best when I’m on the top of a mountain"

2On her love of nature:

"I get turned on by nature. I don’t find urban brothel situations very hot. But that’s just my taste… like, National Geographic porn."

3On her favourite smells:

"Rhubarb, oxygen in rainforests, inhaling hair closest to skull."

4On never feeling alone:

"I never really understood the word loneliness. As far as I was concerned, I was in an orgy with the sky and the ocean."

5On British cuisine:

"The English eat all sorts of birds - pigeons, ducks, sparrows - but if you tell them you eat puffin, you might as well come from Mars."

6On footy:

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

7On being Icelandic:

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

8On more Icelandic clichés:

"I have had to deal with the elfin naïve nonsense stamp all my life and I have never seen an elf and I don’t think I’m naïve."

9On the ego involved in going solo:

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

10On the future of the world:

"I think the way to overcome environmental problems is with technology. What else are we going to use - sticks?"