Bono Quotes

U2’s music was never really rock ’n’ roll. Under its contemporary skin it’s opera — a big music, big emotions unlocked in the pop music of the day. A tenor out front who won’t accept he’s a baritone. A small man singing giant songs. Wailing, keening, trying to explain the unexplainable. Trying to release himself and anyone who will listen from the prison of a human experience that cannot explain grief.

What you don't have you don't need it now
What you don't know you can feel it somehow
What you don't have you don't need it now
Don't need it now
It was a beautiful day.

And I can tell you the division of our small island was much more to do with keeping Harland & Wolff in the union than to protect the Protestants.

I wouldn't run for President. I wouldn't want to move to a smaller house.

The world is more malleable than you think, and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape.

I really remember John Lennon's Imagine. I guess I'm twelve; that's one of my first albums. That really set fire to me. It was like he was whispering in your ear — his ideas of what's possible. Different ways of seeing the world.

One Life, with each other, Sisters, Brothers...

Well, here we are, the Irish in America. The Irish have been coming to America for years, going back to the great famine when the Irish were on the run from starvation and a British Government that couldn't care less. Right up to today, you know, there are more Irish immigrants here in America today than ever — some illegal, some legal. A lot of them are just running from high unemployment, some run from the Troubles in Northern Ireland, from the hatred of the H Blocks, torture. Others from wild acts of terrorism like we had today in a town called Enniskillen, where eleven people lie dead, and many more injured, on a Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Someone has likened prayer to being on a rough sea in a small boat with no oars. All you have is a rope that, somewhere in the distance, is attached to the port.

This is the straight truth, the righteous truth. It's not a theory, it's a fact. The fact is that this generation — yours, my generation — that can look at the poverty, we're the first generation that can look at poverty and disease, look across the ocean to Africa and say with a straight face, we can be the first to end this sort of stupid extreme poverty, where in the world of plenty, a child can die for lack of food in it's belly. We can be the first generation. It might take a while, but we can be that generation that says no to stupid poverty. It's a fact, the economists confirm it. It's an expensive fact but, cheaper than say the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from communism and fascism. And cheaper I would argue than fighting wave after wave of terrorism's new recruits.

"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.

I really, really do believe it. I just want you to know, I think this is obvious, but I'm not really going in for the warm fuzzy feeling thing, I'm not a hippy, I do not have flowers in my hair, I come from punk rock, The Clash wore army boots not Birkenstocks. I believe America can do this! I believe that this generation can do this. In fact I want to hear an argument about why we shouldn't.

I recall the words of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who became the first female president in Africa. “If your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough.

If you're wondering what I'm doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well, so am I. I'm certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is leather. It's certainly not because I'm a rock star. Which leaves one possible explanation: I'm here because I've got a messianic complex. Yes, it's true. And for anyone who knows me, it's hardly a revelation.

I was in that room. It might have been a rehearsal room as a new song dropped by, but soon enough it was a walk down a country lane. “Now,” said the doctor, continuing. “Pull out the feeling that makes you feel safest and strongest and describe it for me.” “I’m walking along a river with my best friend,” I said. “And everything is just as it should be. I have confidence in my footsteps; I feel I am learning judgment but not being judged. I can say anything I want. Sometimes there’s a reply; sometimes there’s not. It’s just a conversation between friends.” “And your friend,” inquired the doctor. “Who is it?” I said, “I think it’s Jesus.” I heard the doctor shuffle, nervously, in his seat. Maybe I wasn’t that deep in his hypnosis. And he asked, “Where are you?” I said, “I’m just walking down a country lane by a river. It’s not the Tolka or the Liffey or even the Mississippi. Could it be the Jordan? I’ve always had a thing about the river Jordan.” Emerging from this “deep relaxation,” I could sense that the great physician had not expected me to find Jesus in my bottom drawer. The doctor was polite