Ed Kowalczyk

“Critics are critics: their job is to find things wrong with people.”

“I'll never forget the first concert I basically went to. Actually, Sonny and Cher was my first concert, but U2 was my first real concert. I was 17 and saw them at JFK Stadium and had really crappy seats.”

“Life is full of inspiration, far more than I'll ever get to write about.”

“Lots of human-rights tragedies deserve concerts, but there's something extra with Tibet. It's a spiritual culture, a country rooted in humility and compassion. And among artists, there's a lot of Buddhists, people who want an alternative to basic Christianity, which doesn't offer much.”

“Life takes turns. There are forks in the road.”

“I really don't do concept stuff very well. If I'm sitting thinking about what kind of song I want to write, within a few minutes, I'm kind of bored. It's just a personal thing for me.”

“It's something I've always been passionate about - which is the power of rock and roll itself. I'm a walking example of its power, 'cause I was totally altered in the seminal years of Live by bands like U2 and R.E.M., U2 in particular.”

“From the very beginning, we were all a hundred and ten percent about the music, from the very early days when we could barely play our instruments, and we were just covering other people's songs when we were in high school.”

“As a songwriter and a singer in a successful rock band, I have had the good fortune of being surrounded by incredible musicians, lots of wonderful production on both record and onstage, and plenty of volume!”

“Arenas, to me, and especially sheds, are really great venues. You get that sea of humanity, but everybody can still see it and hear it. And that's really important to us.”

“Anarchy would be a world that nobody felt responsible for, that nobody felt any sort of love for. When there's real intelligence happening, when there's real love happening, there's a sense of responsibility: Hey, we've got to take care of this place and each other.”

“Practicing love is a difficult thing to do. It's much easier to get angry.”

“The Web has incredible potential for an artist who keeps in touch with millions of people.”

“We came from a small town where there was no music scene or no other bands, and we decided to put ours together and go for it.”

“I remember people telling me that at 5 1/2 minutes long, 'Lightning Crashes' would never be a hit song.”

“We've never been satisfied with just making 'me' music. What we're doing is trying to go to a place of some reverence.”

“It's always so rewarding, gratifying to me, as an artist and a writer, to see how this music gets more important for a lot of people as time goes by. And it's not just nostalgia. It's a feeling of it's really relevant to their lives, even though it's 20 or 25 years old or more.”

“I believe that rock and roll can really make a huge impact on people's lives.”

“I love Peter Gabriel, and I've come so close to working with him a few times. We were on a movie soundtrack together, but we didn't actually write together.”

“When I was a kid, my aunt coached me a little bit for choir, and what she taught me actually stuck with me. She basically taught me to sing from my diaphragm and not from my throat.”