Quotes By 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.

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.

I'm never nervous.

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

Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gift one person can give another.

I think ABBA have a pure joy to their music and that's what makes them extraordinary.

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.

Celebrity is ridiculous and silly and it's mad that people like me are listened to - you know, rap stars and movie stars.

We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.

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.

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.

Africa will thrive.

Selling out is doing something you don't really want to do for money. That's what selling out is.

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.

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.

Particularly conservative Christians, I was very angry that they were not involved more in the AIDS emergency.

You know, God has some really weird kids, and I find it hard to be in their company most of the time.

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

Music can change the world because it can change people.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

God's Spirit moves through us and the world at a pace that can never be constricted by any one religious paradigm.

The great moments of rock 'n' roll were never off in some corner of the music world, in a self-constructed ghetto.

Overcoming my dad telling me that I could never amount to anything is what has made me the megalomaniac that you see today.

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.