“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before”

“Don't let the old story repeat itself now. Arm yourself with all that's happened.”

“Maybe the reason I've never died in this story is that I've never had something worth dying for before.”

“An ancient adage warns, "Never go to sea with two chronometers; take one or three."”

“Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum.”

“Here's an awesome tour story: I was playing these two shows last fall in Europe, we played at Reykjavík, and the three or four days we were in Reykjavík happened to be the one and only Sugarcubes reunion show… So it was like, tour of a lifetime.”

“Distances and days existed in themselves then; they all had a story. They were not barriers. If a person wanted to get to the moon, there was a way; it all depended on whether you knew the directions-exactly which way to go and what to do to get there; it depended on whether you knew the story of how others before you had gone.”

“Humanity had to inflict terrible injuries on itself before the self, the identical, purpose-directed, masculine character of human beings was created, and something of this process is repeated in every childhood.”

“The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.”

“I wish I could paint more... I do dozens of sketches for oils.... if I do one that interests me I go on to make a painting but that happens only two or three times a year.”