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Whenever I travel anywhere, I'm constantly asked if I'm Swedish. It's the burden of most Norwegians. The Swedes have just got a better publicity agent, I think.

Swedes are such a civilised, perfect society - at least on the surface. There's a great safety net, a huge middle class, free education, free health care. People are very polite, they wait their turn. They're not too loud, they're not too quiet, but sometimes it's a little too perfect.

I think Sweden is known for people being a bit more quiet than other cultures, and I guess it's a mixture: shyness and leaving room for other people to talk. Of course, when people get drunk, all of that disappears.

I think one thing with Sweden is that in some way the Swedish society is a very good society, almost perfect on the surface. That is something that makes the writers forced to see what is underneath the surface, because it's always something underneath the surface, of course.

Sweden is a great country. What is not so great is that we have a society that, in a way, says it's great if you don't look right, if you don't look left, if you just look straight forward.

What's sometimes really overwhelming in Sweden is the uniformity. People kind of disappear by all looking the same and wearing the same clothes. There are a lot of great individuals, but it can become a very blank and bleak picture.

Swedes are a really humble and shy people in many ways, but I think it's pretty much the same as in the U.S. Little girls want to take photographs with me at lunch.

The north of Sweden is very socialist and poor. They feel left out and despise Stockholm in many ways because Stockholm has become new liberals and much more Americanized.

I always identified myself as non-Swedish. I was never discriminated against, because I looked Swedish and speak without an accent. But I had an outsider's perspective.

Sweden is the home of my ancestors, and I have reserved a special place in my heart for Sweden.