Music can change the world because it can change people.
Bono
When people say, you know, ‘Good teacher,’ ‘Prophet,’ ‘Really nice guy’… this is not how Jesus thought of Himself. So you’re left with a challenge in that, which is either Jesus was who he said he was or a complete and utter nut case. You have to make a choice on that.
Bono
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.
Bono
As a rock star, I have two instincts, I want to have fun, and I want to change the world. I have a chance to do both.
Bono
To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.
Bono
Jesus isn’t lettin’ you off the hook. The Scriptures don’t let you off the hook so easily… When people say, you know, ‘Good teacher’, ‘Prophet’, ‘Really nice guy’ … this is not how Jesus thought of Himself.
Bono
When you truly accept that those children in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God’s eyes or even in just your eyes, then your life is forever changed; you see something that you can’t un-see.
Bono
The less you know, the more you believe.
Bono
When you align yourself with God’s purpose as described in the Scriptures, something special happens to your life.
Bono
You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It’s very real. It’s very strong.
Bono
You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It’s very real. It’s very strong.
Bono
Where you live in the world should not determine whether you live in the world.
Bono
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.
Bono
The job of art is to chase ugliness away.
Bono
There’s nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is.
Bono
Actually oddly enough, I think my work, the activism, will be forgotten. And I hope it will. Because I hope those problems will have gone away.
Bono
Sadly, I do my homework. I’ve a soft spot for the boring minutiae. I read the Charter of the United Nations before meeting with Kofi Annan. I read the Meltzer report, and then I’ll read C. Fred Bergsten’s defense of institutions like the World Bank and the I.M.F. It’s embarrassing to admit.
Bono
I always think if you are asking somebody for something it is a good idea to give them something first.
Bono
What’s so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as they’re being gospel and songs of praise, they are also the blues.
Bono
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.
Bono
But there is a difference between cozying up to power and being close to power.
Bono
Religion can be the enemy of God. It’s often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building.
Bono
I think ABBA have a pure joy to their music and that’s what makes them extraordinary.
Bono
U2 is an original species… there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone.
Bono
The great music for so many artists – the Beatles, the Rolling Stones – was always at the moment when they were closest to pop. It would be easy for U2 to go off and have a concept album, but I want us to stay in the pop fray.
Bono
If September 11th has taught us anything, it’s certainly that the world has never been so interdependent. It is impossible now to be an island of prosperity in a sea of despair.
Bono
Politeness is, you know, is a wonderful thing. Manners are in fact, really important thing. But remember, Jesus didn’t have many manners as we now know.
Bono
Politeness is, you know, is a wonderful thing. Manners are in fact, really important thing. But remember, Jesus didn’t have many manners as we now know.
Bono
Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don’t know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.
Bono
The extraction of oil, coal and minerals brought, and still brings, a cost to the environment.
Bono
Facts, like people, want to be free – and when they’re free, liberty is usually around the corner.
Bono
My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.
Bono
God is so big. It’s a gigantic concept in God. The idea that God might love us and be interested in us is kind of huge and gigantic, but we turn it, because we’re small-minded, into this tiny, petty, often greedy version of God, that is religion.
Bono
Because I was suspicious of the traditional Christian church, I tended to tar them all with the same brush. That was a mistake, because there are righteous people working in a whole rainbow of belief systems – from Hasidic Jews to right-wing Bible Belters to charismatic Catholics.
Bono
I’m as skeptical as anyone would be about celebrities and causes – and I will dare to say to you that I don’t think of myself as a celebrity per se.
Bono
We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.
Bono
Overcoming my dad telling me that I could never amount to anything is what has made me the megalomaniac that you see today.
Bono
But more than anything else, for the British folks Irish people were all terrorists. So when we went to Britain, it was always a lot of resistance to U2. And that’s why we came to America.
Bono
America is not just a country, it’s an idea, and real Americans are getting busy.
Bono
The great moments of rock ‘n’ roll were never off in some corner of the music world, in a self-constructed ghetto.
Bono
My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ.
Bono
God’s Spirit moves through us and the world at a pace that can never be constricted by any one religious paradigm. I love that.
Bono
In my view, the only thing worse than a rock star is a rock star with a conscience.
Bono
It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.
Bono
When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals.
Bono
You’ve gotta be very careful that grace and politeness do not merge into a banality of behavior, where we’re just nice, sort of ‘death by cupcake.’
Bono
What turns me on about the digital age, what excited me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing. You see, it used to be that if you wanted to make a record of a song, you needed a studio and a producer. Now, you need a laptop.
Bono
Rock stars are good at making noise.
Bono
Rock music is niche.
Bono
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.
Bono
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.
Bono
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.
Bono
As hard as it is, as ghetto as it is, hip-hop is pop music. It’s the sound of music getting out of the ghetto, while rock is looking for a ghetto.
Bono