You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there is no way we can look at what's happening in Africa, and if we're honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else.

The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa, and say this, and mean it. We do not have to stand for this. A whole continent written off - we do not have to stand for this.

I'm home a lot. Because I live in Ireland, we can live under the celebrity radar. I might go missing for a whole year.

It is impossible to meet God without abandon, without exposing yourself, being raw.

What really turns me on about technology is not just the ability to get more songs on MP3 players. The revolution - this revolution - is much bigger than that. I hope, I believe. What turns me on about the digital age, what excites me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing.

You've got to watch the politics of AIDS. The politics of AIDS can work both for and against the victims of AIDS.

There is a root arrogance in any writer; a hugely arrogant assumption that anyone is going to listen to them.