Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building.

I have been working for Africans since I was 18, when I got involved with the Nelson Mandela concerts. I got involved with debt cancellation because Desmond Tutu demanded that the world respond to that situation.

Anyone that's involved in development has discovered that all the good work that's been done in development has been undone by the AIDS emergency.

It's quite widespread in rock culture, that mythology of the shooting star. I'd rather be the North star. As bob (Dylan) says, you can navigate by it.

My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.

Ethiopia didn't just blow my mind; it opened my mind. Anyway, on our last day at this orphanage a man handed me his baby and said, 'Would you take my son with you?' He knew, in Ireland, that his son would live, and that in Ethiopia, his son would die.

Particularly conservative Christians, I was very angry that they were not involved more in the AIDS emergency.