Bono

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

— Bono

“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.”

— 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

“So what we're talking about here is human rights. The right to live like a human. The right to live, period. And what we're facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality.”

— Bono

“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.”

— Bono

“You've got to watch the politics of AIDS. The politics of AIDS can work both for and against the victims of AIDS.”

— 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

“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

“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

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

— Bono

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

— Bono

“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.”

— Bono

“Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building.”

— 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

“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.”

— Bono

“Rock music is niche.”

— 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

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

— Bono

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

— Bono

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

— Bono