When I hit 11 so did the careers of Dylan and the Stones. A year later it was the Who and the Kinks.

You cannot even begin to understand contemporary African politics if you have not read this fascinating book

Human progress depends on unreasonable people. Reasonable people accept the world as they meet it; unreasonable people persist in trying to change it. Well, I'm Bob and I'm an unreasonable person. And if TED is anything, it is the olympics of unreasonable people.

Actually, today I had to defend the Bush Administration in France again. They refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that he has actually done more than any American President for Africa. But it's empirically so.

Bono as we all know, is in love with the world, he's enamoured by it. I'm enraged by it. He wants to give the world a great big hug, I want to punch its lights out.

Physically I'm tired at the end of the day and quite glad to be reading in bed by midnight

Well, a sort of epiphany: I was in a great band. And it's very cool to be at 53 and realise that when you were a kid you were in a great band.