To many times we have said “Bono,said what?” and come to find out that Bono has had a lot to say about many subjects. Over the years the press has had an opportunity to catch the one liners, and of course write them up. - Often its a snap shot into a bigger message.
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.
Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gift one person can give another.
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.
It’s so sweet, I feel like my teeth are rotting when I listen to the radio.
It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.
Music can change the world because it can change people.
My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.
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.
The less you know, the more you believe.
To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.
U2 is an original species… there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone.
We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.
Americans, Irish people, are good at charity. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can’t afford it. But justice is a higher standard.”
“And this wise man asked me to stop. He said, Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing. Get involved in what God is doing — because it’s already blessed.”
“As an artist, I see the poetry of it. It’s so brilliant. That this scale of creation, and the unfathomable universe, should describe itself in such vulnerability, as a child. That is mind-blowing to me. I guess that would make me a Christian. Although I don’t use the label, because it is so very hard to live up to. I feel like I’m the worst example of it, so just kinda keep my mouth shut.”
“At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms, God is looking for action.” Bono Quotes
“But I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I’d be in deep s—-. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace.” Bono Quotes
“But my point is that the world is more malleable than you think and it’s waiting for you to hammer it into shape.”
“But we’ve got to follow through on our ideals or we betray something at the heart of who we are. Outside these gates, and even within them, the culture of idealism is under siege, beset by materialism and narcissism and all the other isms” of indifference.”
“But you know what’s amazing? Everywhere I go, I see very much the same thing. I see the same compassion for people who live half a world away. I see the same concern about events beyond these borders. And, increasingly, I see the same conviction that we can and we must join together to stop the scourge of AIDS and poverty.”
“Celebrity is currency, so I wanted to use mine effectively.”
“Do unto others as you would have them do to you. Jesus says that [Luke 6:30]. “Righteousness is this: that one should… give away wealth out of love for Him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives.” The Koran says that [2.177]. Thus sayeth the Lord: “Bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth, then your Lord will be your rear guard.” The Jewish Scripture says that. It’s Isaiah 58 [verses 7-8] again. It’s a very powerful incentive: “The Lord will watch your back.” Sounds like a good deal to me, especially right now.”
“Eight million people die every year for the price of going out with your friends to the movies and buying an ice cream. Literally for about $30 a head per year, you could save 8 million lives. Isn’t that extraordinary? Preventable disease - not calamity, not famine, nothing like that. Preventable disease - just for the lack of medicines. That is cheap, that is a bargain.”
“Even then I prayed more outside of the church than inside. It gets back to the songs I was listening to; to me, they were prayers. How many roads must a man walk down?” That wasn’t a rhetorical question to me. It was addressed to God. It’s a question I wanted to know the answer to, and I’m wondering, who do I ask that to? I’m not gonna ask a schoolteacher. When John Lennon sings, “Oh, my love/For the first time in my life/My eyes are wide open” — these songs have an intimacy for me that’s not just between people, I realize now, not just sexual intimacy. A spiritual intimacy.”
“Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will.”
“Every era has its defining struggle and the fate of Africa is one of ours. It’s not the only one, but in the history books it’s easily going to make the top five, what we did or what we did not do. It’s a proving ground, as I said earlier, for the idea of equality. But whether it’s this or something else, I hope you’ll pick a fight and get in it.”
“Fear is the opposite of faith.”
“I believe in the kingdom come. Then all the colors will bleed into one.”
“I love this work I do. It’s a privilege to serve the poor,….”
“I was jumping up and down. The president deserves a lot of credit for that. He really stuck his neck out. He was right, it’s important the people know at this time what America is for as well as what America’s against. on George Bush’s announcement of increased AIDS funding for Africa.”
“If I could put it simply, I would say that I believe there’s a force of love and logic in the world, a force of love and logic behind the universe. And I believe in the poetic genius of a creator who would choose to express such unfathomable power as a child born in straw poverty”; i.e., the story of Christ makes sense to me.”
“If I could, you know I would. If I could, I would let it go. This desparation, dislocation, separation, condemnation, revelation, in temptation, isolation, desolation.”
“I’m not in a position to be seen as a spokesman for a generation. I mean, how can you be a spokesman of a generation if you’ve nothing to say, other than ‘Help!’”
“Imagine if a third of the kids at your local primary school were AIDS orphans. That’s a reality in Africa where the parents of 13 million children have been killed by AIDS.”
“Isn’t equality a son of a bitch to follow through on. Isn’t Love thy neighbour” in the global village so inconvenient?”
“It’s not enough to rage against the lie…you’ve got to replace it with the truth.”
“It’s patently clear to anyone living in New York or London that whole corners of their cities were about to be taken out, whether with chemicals or dirty nuclear devices. So I’m not full of criticism for the way the Americans have behaved. I’m with them.”
“Look at what happened in Southeast Asia with the Tsunami. 150,000 lives lost to the greatest misnomer of all misnomers, mother nature.” Well, in Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it’s a completely avoidable catastrophe.”
“My heroes are all alive. I never have worshipped at that altar of burnt-out youth.”
“Sing the melody line you hear in your own head, remember, you don’t owe anybody any explanations, you don’t owe your parents any explanations, you don’t owe your professors any explanations. You know I used to think the future was solid or fixed, something you inherited like an old building that you move into when the previous generation moves out or gets chased out. But it’s not. The future is not fixed, it’s fluid. You can build your own building, or hut or condo, whatever.”
“So my question I suppose is: What’s the big idea? What’s your big idea? What are you willing to spend your moral capital, your intellectual capital, your cash, your sweat equity in pursuing outside of the walls of the University of Pennsylvania?”
“The attention of the world might sometimes be elsewhere, but history is watching. It’s taking notes. And it’s going to hold us to account, each of us.”
“There are many side roads and back streets to rock ‘n’ roll, and most of us get lost down them at times.”
“There are potentially another 10 Afghanistans in Africa, and it is cheaper by a factor of 100 to prevent the fires from happening than to put them out.”
“To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.”
“We have to have a very simple standard of doing business, which is: If you are not tackling corruption, if you are not allowing civil society to do their job, we are not giving you any money. Outside of famine, and outside of those kinds of catastrophes, which need money pumped in no matter who’s in charge. We are not marching the streets to redecorate presidential palaces for anyone.”
“We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.”
“Well this is the time for bold measures. This is the country (America), and you are the generation.”
“Well, the going rate for change is not cheap. Big ideas are expensive.”
“We’re not here today for a victory lap; we’re here to pick up the pace. Because AIDS is outrunning us.”
“When the story of these times gets written, we want it to say that we did all we could, and it was more than anyone could have imagined.”
“When you sing, you make people vulnerable to change in their lives. You make yourself vulnerable to change in your life. But in the end, you’ve got to become the change you want to see in the world.”
“Yes, I sometimes fail, but at least I’m willing to experiment.”
“You have worked your ass off for this. For four years you’ve been buying, trading, and selling, everything you’ve got in this marketplace of ideas. The intellectual hustle. Your pockets are full, even if your parents’ are empty, and now you’ve got to figure out what to spend it on.” Bono Quotes
“You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that as you reap, so you will sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.”