Bono

“But there is a difference between cozying up to power and being close to power.”

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

“The past is not a place I like to visit. This project is forcing me to go there, to tidy up my thoughts. I'm not normally a navel-gazer. I've always thought you find yourself in other people. I'm visiting here. I don't want to set up house.”

“You've gotta be very careful that grace and politeness do not merge into a banality of behavior, where we're just nice, sort of 'death by cupcake.'”

“Marriage is this grand madness, and I think if people knew that, they would perhaps take it more seriously.”

“Contrary to reports, this boy is not a billionaire or going to be richer than any Beatle... and not just in the sense of money, by the way; the Beatles are untouchable - those billionaire reports are a joke.”

“I get to hear the really good or the really bad things in the press, but I don't read it. I can afford to say that because public opinion does not drive U2's audience.”

“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 put Catholic guilt to work pretty good for a rich rock star.”

“If September 11th has taught us anything, it's certainly that the world has never been so interdependent. It is impossible now to be an island of prosperity in a sea of despair.”

“The idea that there is one kind of African is, of course, ridiculous. Sometimes African entrepreneurs want to kill you because you are saying public health is the priority, not roads. Of course they are right to press for that issue, but so are we right, I believe, to argue, for example, that millions of children could and should be vaccinated.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Where you live should not determine whether you live, or whether you die.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It's much easier to be successful than it is to be relevant. The tricks won't keep you relevant. Tricks might keep you popular for a while, but in all honesty, I don't know how U2 will stay relevant. I know we've got a future. I know we can fill stadiums. And yet with every record, I think, 'Is this it? Are we still relevant?'”

“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.”

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