At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms, God is looking for action.

Hanging out with politicians and corporations is very unhip work. But I think that the U2 audience have turned out to be incredibly subtle in their understanding.

The strangest thing has happened. I really missed my dog. That's never happened to me before. You know, on a long tour you do hear people saying they miss their pets. I never have. But last night I started really missing my dog. It's very odd, 'cause I don't have a dog.

I have learned to interface - what I think would be the contemporary term - with various different lexicons, and people speak very different languages. I've learned to speak in a lot of tongues, and I can live with the bellicose language of some fervent, fire-breathing Christians, sure.

Smack in the centre of contradiction is the place to be.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It's a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.