Bono Quotes

U2 is an original species... there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone.

It's annoying, but justice and equality are mates. Aren't they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its apologist.

What I like about pop music, and why I'm still attracted to it, is that in the end it becomes our folk music.

Rock 'n' roll is ridiculous. It's absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we're wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.

As a musician and a songwriter it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

I'm never nervous when I go to meet heads of state. I feel they should be nervous, because they are the ones who'll be held accountable for the lives their decisions will impact the most.

Facts, like people, want to be free - and when they're free, liberty is usually around the corner.

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

When you align yourself with God's purpose as described in the Scriptures, something special happens to your life.

To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.

My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ.

It's a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That's where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head.

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

There was a moment when Prince did rock & roll with a sponge-y seductive sound. I think that's what was in our head for 'Get On Your Boots.' But actually, the song is much more punk rock.

To touch is to heal, to hurt is to steal, If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel. On your knees, boy...

The human heart is greedy; it will use religion, color, or any other excuse to justify its greed. Blame the human heart.

U2 is sort of song writing by accident really. We don't really know what we're doing and when we do, it doesn't seem to help.

Perspective is the cure for depression.

Where you live in the world should not determine whether you live in the world.

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.

Sometimes religion gets in the way of God.

Essentially, I'm a very real person; good and bad. And the public image is one of being very good, I suppose. But one of the reasons I'm attracted to people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Christ, to pacifism, is because naturally, I'm the guy that would not turn the other cheek - but, when people see you're attracted to that, they think you are that.

Sub-Saharan Africa is also home to 400 million of the world's poorest people.

The most powerful idea that's entered the world in the last few thousand years - the idea of grace - is the reason I would like to be a Christian.

Even though I'm a believer, I still find it really hard to be around other believers. They make me nervous, they make me twitch. I sorta watch my back.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way.

U2's best work has always been when we didn't know what we're doing.

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.

Dream up the kind of world you want to live in. Dream out loud.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

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.

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

Feelings are much stronger than thoughts. We are all led by instinct, and our intellect catches up later

Because you know when you first become famous, you start walking a little different because people are staring at you.

I love America and I hate it. I'm torn between the two. I have two conflicting visions of America. One is a kind of dream landscape and the other is a kind of black comedy.

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.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did - or did not do - to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do.

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.

Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will.

The only person who ever called me Paul was my father, so I always associate it with doing something wrong, you know. So, you know, occasionally, people will come up to me on the street and try to, you know, ingratiate themselves and call me Paul. I don't like it, actually.

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.

I think carrying moral baggage is very dangerous for an artist. If you have a duty, it's to be true and not cover up the cracks.

Stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Find out what God's doing. It's already blessed.

I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery. The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that's why they're so relatable.

It's not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions.

If I don't understand it, it must be art.

It's stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.