Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We're standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade.
It's so sweet, I feel like my teeth are rotting when I listen to the radio.
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.
I have learned to interface - what I think would be the contemporary term - with various different lexicons, and people speak very different languages. I've learned to speak in a lot of tongues, and I can live with the bellicose language of some fervent, fire-breathing Christians, sure.
The extraction of oil, coal and minerals brought, and still brings, a cost to the environment.
It's quite widespread in rock culture, that mythology of the shooting star. I'd rather be the North star. As bob (Dylan) says, you can navigate by it.
Happy the country that lives on nothing but its wits; cursed be the one that thinks it can get rich by planting or digging or drilling for wealth.
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.
Technology is huge; I wanted to learn about it. People might say that's odd, but I think it's odd if artists aren't interested in the world around them. I'm always chasing that.
It's still very difficult for me to rely. Your weakness, the blessing of your weakness is it forces you into friendships. The things that you lack, you look for in others.
At the heart of the Irish economy has always been the philosophy of tax competitiveness. On the cranky left, that is very annoying; I can see that.
Every artist is a cannibal/every poet is a thief/all kill for inspiration/and then sing about the grief.
I put Catholic guilt to work pretty good for a rich rock star.
The great gifts of models are not that they're more beautiful than the next person, it's that they're able to be photographed and not be self-conscious.
I'm as skeptical as anyone would be about celebrities and causes - and I will dare to say to you that I don't think of myself as a celebrity per se.
I do see the good in people, but I also see the bad --- I see it in myself. I know what I'm capable of. Good and bad. It's very imnportant that we make that clear. Just because I often find a way around the darkness doesn't mean tjat I don't know it's there. (Bono)
I will admit that we are attracted to issues that unify people rather than divide them.
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.
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.
You've got to watch the politics of AIDS. The politics of AIDS can work both for and against the victims of AIDS.
Hanging out with politicians and corporations is very unhip work. But I think that the U2 audience have turned out to be incredibly subtle in their understanding.
U2 was involved in Live Aid, and I ended up going to Ethiopia and working there for some time with my wife, Ali.
Particularly conservative Christians, I was very angry that they were not involved more in the AIDS emergency.
As hard as it is, as ghetto as it is, hip-hop is pop music. It's the sound of music getting out of the ghetto, while rock is looking for a ghetto.
What really turns me on about technology is not just the ability to get more songs on MP3 players. The revolution - this revolution - is much bigger than that. I hope, I believe. What turns me on about the digital age, what excites me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing.
