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.

It's so sweet, I feel like my teeth are rotting when I listen to the radio.

For all that "I was lost, I am found," it is probably more accurate to say, "I was really lost, I'm a little less so at the moment.

In my view, the only thing worse than a rock star is a rock star with a conscience.

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.

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.

I wish to begin again on a daily basis. To be born again every day is something that I try to do. And I'm deadly serious about that.