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"These are gruesome acts, barbaric acts," he said. "If I had tried to use a more normal language I don’t think I would have been able to talk about it at all."
Earlier, Breivik said he took to the Internet to learn how to carry out his bombing-and-shooting rampage, studying attacks by al-Qaida, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
The confessed mass killer told the court he paid close attention in particular to the World Trade Center bombing in New York and McVeigh’s 1995 attack on an Oklahoma City government building, which killed 168 people and injured over 600.
Breivik also said he had read more than 600 bomb-making guides.
He called the Islamist al-Qaida "the most successful revolutionary movement in the world" and said it should serve as an inspiration to far-right militants, even though their goals are different.
"I have studied each one of their actions, what they have done wrong, what they have done right," Breivik said of al-Qaida. "We want to create a European version of al-Qaida."
Comparing himself to a Japanese "banzai" warrior during World War II, Breivik said too many Norwegian men were "feminized, cooking food and showing emotions."
A lawyer for the victims noted that Breivik himself had cried on the first day of the trial as prosecutors showed an anti-Muslim video he had created.
"I wasn’t prepared for that film," Breivik said. "It’s a film that represents the fight and everything I love."
Breivik has admitted to the bombing in Oslo that killed eight people and the shooting massacre at the Labor Party youth camp that left 69 dead. He claims to belong to an alleged anti-Muslim "Knights Templar" network. Many groups claim part of that name, but prosecutors say they don’t believe the group described by Breivik exists.
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If declared sane, Breivik could face a maximum 21-year prison sentence or an alternate custody arrangement that would keep him locked up as long as he is considered a menace to society. If found insane, he would be committed to psychiatric care for as long as he’s considered ill.
Christin Bjelland, a spokeswoman for a massacre support group, was horrified by Breivik’s testimony.
"I’m going back to my hometown tonight," she told The Associated Press. "My husband, he’s going to drive me out to the sea, and I’m going to take a walk there and I’m going to scream my head off."
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