Quotes from Bono

I am, as a character, at times, a little overbearing. I recognize that.

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.

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.

It's very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.

But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.

I used to love Kurt Cobain, when he was telling people we're a pop band. People would laugh, they thought of it as good old ironic Kurt. But he wasn't being ironic.

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

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.

Facebook are an amazing team, a brilliant team. It's a technology that brings people together.

Love will have its day.

Jesus never let me down You know Jesus used to show me the score Then they put Jesus in show business Now it's hard to get in the door.

Don't get me too excited because I use four letter words when I get excited.

I don't believe the Devil, I don't believe his book, but the truth is not the same without the lies he made up.

Progressive rock was the enemy in 1976. And it still is. And it has many, many faces. This beast is lurking everywhere. It can describe itself as indie rock. It's the same [blanking] thing. It's misery. I have seen so many great minds struck down by it.

I'm in love with this country called America. I'm a huge fan of America, I'm one of those annoying fans, you know the ones that read the CD notes and follow you into bathrooms and ask you all kinds of annoying questions about why you didn't live up to that ... I'm that kind of fan. I read the Declaration of Independence and I've read the Constitution of the United States, and they are some liner notes, dude.

How long, how long must we sing this song?

History, like God, is watching what we do.

Great ideas and great melodies have a lot in common.

I know idealism is not playing on the radio right now, you don't see it on TV, irony is on heavy rotation, the knowingness, the smirk, the tired joke. I've tried them all out but I'll tell you this ... idealism is under siege beset by materialism, narcissism and all the other isms of indifference. Baggism, Shaggism. Raggism. Notism, graduationism, chismism, I don't know. Where's John Lennon when you need him?

People say songs are like your children, no they are like your parents. They tell you what to do, they tell you how to behave, they tell you how to misbehave, how to dress. Everything you do is directed by the songs.

My earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I've always heard kind of melodies in my head. I remember standing under a piano at my grandmother's house, when the keys of the piano were higher than my head and kind of pressing down on the keys, and then hearing one note and then looking for another one to follow it, because you always -- you know, if you're a musician or if you're a songwriter, somehow when you hear one note, you hear another one.

Anyone who finds there way to the front of a rock band, standing in the spotlight in the center of the stage, has definitely got a Messianic complex, and the shy ones, the kind of "oh, how did this happen to me" ones, they're the very worst kinds of Messianic complex. A lot of artists play that.

Pop music often tells you everything is OK, while rock music tells you that it's not OK, but you can change it.

First of all, David's a musician, so I'm gonna like him.... And what's so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as their being Gospel and songs of praise, they are also the Blues. It's very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.