BONO QUOTES

Page 1 | Page 2

I'm actually in awe of Larry for knowing exactly who he is. I don't know if I'm this or that or what. But why can't I be all of them? (U2 At the End of the World 9)

If I knew who I was I wouldn't be an artist, I wouldn't be in a band, I wouldn't be here screaming for a living. (U2 At the End of the World 9)

Rhythm is the sex of music. If U2 is to explore erotic themes, we have to have sexuality in the music as well as the words. The flat rhythms of white rock & roll have had their day. Rhythm is now part of the language. (U2 At the End of the World 9)

I don't think I've ever come home from a tour the same person I left. So there is always a moment where the people you come home to wonder if you're going to get on with them. Or if they even want you in the house. I'm an itinerant at heart. When I was fourteen my mother died. I lived with my father, and it was a house but it wasn't really a home after that. I always ended up sleeping on the floor of other people's places. And so, wherever I am I'm happy enough, I probably wouldn't come home at all if it weren't for the fact I had family. I think the real problems start when you come back, not when you go out.

It's a bit of a con to call it something as flip as Achtung Baby. Because underneath that thin layer of trash it's blood and guts. It's a very heavy, loaded record. It's a dense record. I told somebody I thought it was a dense record and word got around that we were making a dance record. (U2 At the End of the World 22)

When you're a thirty you're just starting your creative life if you're a painter or a writer. Some don't start till they're forty, or probably shouldn't. It's just that in rock & roll terms, in the way it used to be, a lot of people were burnt out. They were shooting stars, and of course they burned bright and they burned fast, but with a lot of great artists it's the opposite; they just got better and better. That's what I want U2 to be. I feel we've just had a taste of it and that the success, in a way, is a distraction. (U2 At the End of the World 25)

Basically, it's waking up to the fact that there's a lot of bullshit in rock & roll, but some of the bullshit is pretty cool...[Success] seemed to compromise us, to make us look like charlatans. Getting all this money for things we'd do for free...Suddenly I felt gagged. If I wrote a song about the Gulf War, then that would be making money out of the war! I couldn't write a song about faith and doubt anymore because that would turn me into the preacher in this glass cathedral of rock & roll. So I decided the only way was, instead of running away from the contradictions, I should run into them and wrap my arms around them and give 'em a big kiss. Actually write about hypocrisy, because I've never seen a righteous man that looked like one. (U2 At the End of the World 57)

Another subject that I'm interested in is rock & roll itself - the medium and the machine. I hope that comes through. One of the greatest contradictions of rock & roll is that it's very personal, private music made on a huge public address system. (U2 At the End of the World 57)

The funny thing about Larry was that, okay, he got into the dress and he put on the makeup, but he was fighting with it. He wouldn't take off his Doc Martens and when he was sitting he'd put his feet up on the table. But as mach as he tried to be, he still looked like some extra from a skin flick. That was the irony. Whereas Adam was just getting people to do him up in the back and swapping makeup tips with any girl that passed. You know, suddenly he could own up to being very interested in their underwear! (U2 At the End of the World 59)

The whole business of being in a rock & roll band is just so ridiculous. I was thinking, it's like having a sex change!..People treat you like a girl! You know? They stare at you, they follow you down the street, they hustle you. And then they try to fuck you over! It's a hard thing to talk about because it's so absurd, but actually it's valuable. When I'm with women I know what it feels like. I know what it feels like to be a babe. (U2 At the End of the World 59)

Rock & roll is folk music now. Rock & roll has never been so uninspired, so codified...Rock & roll is a spirit and that spirit is Zoo TV. (U2 At the End of the World 67)

Going out on the road is not difficult. The real problems start when you come home, readjustment. When you're on the road, everything is put second to the gig. You have minders who follow you out at night to make sure you come back and play the next concert. And when you come home, the clusterfuck mentality you bring back from the road can be very funny. (U2 At the End of the World 79)

I've never been as turned on about rock & roll as I am now because there seem to be so many possibilities. Sex and music are still for me places where you glimpse God. Sex and art, I suppose, but unless you're going to get slain in the spirit of Warhol or Rothko, I think for most of us art is music. We're looking for diamonds in the dirt, and the music is more in the mud now. Our heads may still be in the clouds, but our feet are definitely dragging the dirt. As dark as it gets, though, we are looking for shiny moments. Those shiny moments, for me, are the same as they've always been. There are big words for them, like transcendence. I'm still interested in the things of the spirit and God and the mind-boggling idea that He might be interested in us. And faith and faithfulness, sexually and spiritually speaking. (U2 At the End of the World 81)

To tell our stories, to play them out, to paint pictures, moving and still, but above all to glimpse another way of being. Because as much as we need to describe the kind of world we do live in, we need to dream up the kind of world we want to live in. In the case of a rock & roll band that is to dream out loud, at high volume, to turn it up to eleven. Because we have fallen asleep in the comfort of our freedom. (U2 At the End of the World 171) - speech given at an antifascist evening at the Thalia

I suppose we've always felt very uncomfortable around men who are part of that rock & roll culture, that macho thing. A lot of men in rock & roll tend to be overdramatic. They act like queens, regardless of their heterosexuality. They seem to be hysterical, rather than just to work away at something. And I think it's a need for female contact within our world. It's a very male-dominated world and we don't feel comfortable with that. (U2 At the End of the World 175)

Making records is like making sausages. You'll probably enjoy them more if you don't see how it's done. (U2 At the End of the World 196)

It's a terrible thing to get something before you desire it. We've been lucky. We've generally desired something just before we got it. But then, it's also a mind-fuck to get everything you want. (U2 At the End of the World 275)

Exactly what I didn't like about our position in the eighties was that we were running away rather than just kind of laughing in its face, which is more where we're at right now. (U2 At the End of the World 276)

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. (U2 At the End of the World 351)

You know, I had fun flirting with Christy, but I never had an affair with her! I wouldn't. After introducing these beautiful women to my wife they lost all interest in me! They're her friends now. (U2 At the End of the World 367)

Adam is not a sleaze. Ask any of the women who work for us. Adam is not a sleazy guy. But when Adam bottoms out he goes way down, and that's what happened. He hurts no one but himself. But I'll tell you, if Adam gets in his car some night and kills himself or someone else, it won't be funny anymore. Then it won't be a joke. That is my fear. Adam is a good person. He is. He may have screwed up, but at heart he's good. Being with Naomi has been good for Adam because it's forced him to be the stable one in a relationship. Usually the woman has to look after Adam, but Naomi's so wild that Adam has had to become the responsible one. (U2 At the End of the World 367)

At first, when you're reading stories about your life in the media, who you're supposed sleeping with, how much money you're supposed to be making, what you had for breakfast - you feel violated. Then you start to realize that the person they're describing has very little to do with you and is in fact much more interesting than you are...Your public image is interactive: people stick on arms, an extra leg; it's sort of a Robo-Bono thing. (U2 At the End of the World 374)

In the '80s we had this real struggle: we felt that we had some kind of onus to literally save the planet, and though that's not a bad instinct, if you start walking like you're carrying the planet on your head, it's not a very funky walk. (U2 At the End of the World 374)

The Holy Spirit is like a woman. Undependable. Joke! Joke! (U2 At the End of the World 379)

It's great! Some artists become dull when they stop drinking or drugging, but Adam's not one of them. He's his old self. He loses none of his rubber band shooting, water gun squirting, public disrobing spirit when he doesn't drink. (U2 At the End of the World 455)

I've always loved 'Can't Help Falling In Love'; and I wanted to give it a different interpretation to Elvis', which I always felt was down on one knee - like, 'Take my hand, take my whole life too' - I always felt he was at the altar. Where as I was interested in the second verse - which was, 'Shall I stay? Would it be a sin?' - which doesn't sound like somebody who's getting married! So I thought, this is interesting, I'll play the Catholic-guilt version. So that was my spin on the song... Though the angels do arrive at the end to rescue the day... I hope! - 1992

These days, I only buy records that are advised to me by friends. The best music is still being made by people who're on the run for, or looking for the Holy Spirit. Take a look at Blues music, to Hip Hop and R&B.. or to Dylan, Leonard Cohen or even to the young Jeff Buckley.

I don't mean to be arrogant, but ...I do feel that we are meant to be one of the great groups. - Rolling Stone 1981

Last night Adam and I were talking about our aspirations. We do make, and we will continue to make, soul music. Not soul music with black singers - soul music is not about the instruments you play. Soul music is when you reveal, rather than conceal. Soul music is when you bring what's on the inside to the outside. - 1983

I always thought 'The Fly' was this phone call from hell -- but the guy likes it there. - 1995

I don't know much about religion, but I am a Christian.

It would be wrong for me to say, "Yes, we can change the world with a song" -but every time I try writing, that's where I'm at. I'm not stupid. I'm aware of the futility of rock 'n' roll music. But I'm also aware of it's power.

I think it's the spiritual strength that's essential to the band. People have got to find their own way. I'm not into standing up and saying, 'hey, you should be into God!' My own life is exhilarating through an experience I feel, and I feel there's no point in talking about something which should be there in your life anyway. You don't have to preach about it. - February 1982

The band was strong on Pop. This is not a personality crisis. This is us growing into other areas. And we won't have our knuckles rapped for that. That is the very thing that is keeping us alive and the reason why, as a group, love us or hate us, we're still on an incline. It's stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

I think that Edge is the head of the band, I'm the heart, and Adam and Larry are the feet. - 1981

I'm frightened, but I'm not cynical or pessimistic about the future and a lot of that must come down to my beliefs. It is my belief in God that enables me to get up in the morning and face the world. I believe that there is a logic and a reason for everything. If I didn't believe that and thought that everything was simply down to chance, then I'd really be afraid. I wouldn't cross the road for fear of being run over. February 1983

Rock & roll is mutating into something else at the moment... Images are everything, and we want to be there when the sort of audiovisual-microchip-interactive music is born.

Spending time in Africa and seeing people in the pits of poverty, I still saw a very strong spirit in the people, a richness of spirit I didn't see when I came home. - about his work in Ethiopia

I don't deserve any prizes, because I could afford to go. A lot of people would give their right arms to go to Ethiopia and help out. I could afford to. - 1987

I had the loudest mouth. When we formed the group, I was the lead guitar player, singer and songwriter. Nobody talked back at first. But then they talked me out of being lead guitar player and into being the rhythm guitar player and into just being the singer. And then they tried to talk me out of being the singer and into being the manager. But I held on to that. Arrogance may have been the reason. - 1983

Can you imagine how it feels to believe in Christ and be so uncomfortable with Christianity? The church is an empty, hollow building. It's the edifice. The established church is the edifice of Christianity. It's as if when the spirit of God leaves a place, the only things that are left are the pillars of rules and regulations to keep its roof on. And we are more and more claustrophobic around organized religion. I used to think I could walk into a Protestant or Catholic church or whatever and just be at one with myself and the surroundings. But we are... it's as if the way we are outsiders in the music scene we're outsiders on every level. We get flak from everyone. We seem to be walking this line, and whenever we cross it either way it's a long way down, on either side, to fall. And I don't know how we're still there, but it takes it all away to talk about it too much. January 1985

A lot of rock 'n' roll is banal; ideas well executed. Whereas I think a lot of what we do is really very interesting ideas, badly executed. - 1996

My strongest trait is curiosity, I'm just lifting stones, you know, opening doors. Looking out windows, around corners, up skirts.

Quincy Jones said to me once, 'You're waiting for God to walk through the room, or else it's just craft.' The way you write music is at once humdrum -- there's a fridge in the corner with apples and a bottle of milk, and there's a fax machine -- and at the same time you're waiting for a miracle, or else it's just the sum of the parts. And yesterday we got this great gift of this melody, and that's what we have now. - 2000

You must not look down on someone just 'cos they are 14 years old. When I was that age I listened to the music of John Lennon and it changed my way of seeing things, so I'm just glad that 14 year olds are coming to see U2 rather than group X. - 1988

All our songs are about God or women, and we often get the two mixed up.

I am already on drugs. I am the sort of person who needs to take drugs to make me normal. (laughs) I have experimented. No, I don't think that it is something that everybody has to do, one, just to be alive, or two, to write great songs. - 1989, when asked whether he finds intoxicants creatively useful

There is no justification for killing. Nonviolence is the best way, and ultimately the most successful. - 1989

I think some people won't be into it, that's for sure. The guitars are very heavily treated and processed and don't sound like guitars. The people who are expecting a U2 album are going to be disappointed. But if they want something to kind of trip out to...it's a late-night record. It feels like it's been set on the bullet train in Tokyo. Every record has a location, a place where you enjoy listening to it, whether that be a bedroom or a club, well this record location is a fast train. It's slo-mo music though. But it has an odd sense of speed in the background. - 1995, about 'Passengers'

It's extraordinary to have been around for as long as we have been around and still find music with people we want to play with. With 'Passengers', we have a vehicle to do collaborations with whoever it is we want to play with...Howie B, Pavarotti or anyone. It's great. I think the only limit is our own imagination and I think U2 are fairly kind of desperate in that regard. - 1995

'We're going to make a real rockin' record. Edge is falling back in love with the guitar and he's making it sound like it's never been heard before. It's a new instrument in his hands. Everybody's just in fine form. U2 are desperate to make a great rock'n'roll record. We've not yet made our best record. We're slow learners. - 1995

The first thing to know about rock 'n' roll lyrics is that they are not literature. They are something else. They are something more or they are something less; they are only part of the story,' he says. 'I've learned, for instance, how to listen to Michael Jackson records, I've figured it out. I just pretend I can't speak English. And I am a huge fan as a result. I mean that. It's just the 'Man In The Mirror' and all that fucks me up. But you know what I mean, it's another language. Often, rock 'n' roll music is a very narrow emotional bandwave that is simply, you know, 'I want to shag you', and that so very, very high on my agenda. But it's, 'How I want to, and why, and oh gosh, I am married', and there's all these things that make it interesting. - 1995

Pavarotti's a father figure. He's an extraordinary man. He rang me and asked me to write a song and I said I didn't think that would be possible because we were working on these two records: this 'Passengers' project and the next U2 record. And he just wouldn't stop calling, which was pretty amazing. Every single day he would ring the house and if he wasn't called back immediately he would shout at the housekeeper and say, 'Tell God to give me a call.' I would go to the band and say, 'He's been on again, and we have to write him a tune,' and they'd just say, 'Oh fuck off'.' He (Pavarotti) would say things like 'I will call you every day, every hour, I will be with you in your dreams. I will speak into the ear of your children'. But it's such an honour. - 1995

Dressing up as the devil is great. I enjoyed every minute of it. The amazing thing was a woman called Una [Eunice] Shriver who set up the Special Olympics - she's one of the Kennedys and an American Irish I suppose - she came down to see us. She's incredibly erudite and she's up on everything, a pretty sharp lady. And she said after the show, 'Y'know, I used to go and see U2 shows and I just saw these kind of angels.' And she she said, 'Tonight I saw these devils as well as angels on stage and I think I liked it better. It's a fairer fights.' MacPhisto walking through the Vatican. That was great. I really enjoyed that. Walking through the Vatican with my stick thinking, 'One day this could all be mine.' You have to accept the bold type and caricaturing that goes on when you become a big band and have fun with it and create these other alter egos. They weren't parodying at all, they weren't just sides of yourself, they were just different characters. They were just a way of sending out a decoy because deep down I'm just a really nice guy. It was pretty dizzy, just the kind of media overload. There's kind of confusion that is great fun for a rock 'n' roll band to play with. We got very excited about working with all this stuff that is out there. I mean a simple device like a telephone is probably something that didn't occur to Elvis. But I just think that in the '90s it's amazing that you can pick up the phone and ring the White House or Alessandra Mussolini. You can have 70,000 people singing 'I Just Called To Say I Love You' on the phone. It just seemed like a way of being on tour for two years and not getting bored. There was some extraordinary stuff, like the Sarajevo broadcast, which was was hard to continue the show after. I didn't quite fetto a conclusion. But it's still extraordinary and I imagine it must be doing our collective head in. - 1995

If U2 sang that song at this point, it might be reason enough for the troubles to start up again. I've had enough bruises and scars not to want to take things on the head in the same way anymore. I think you've got to be smarter now. But this is the moment. I don't know if a moment is going to come along like this again. The real hero is John Hume, he's the man who's been working the same groove for 20 years. He's the Martin Luther King of this moment. I'm still Old Testament enough and Californian enough to believe in atonement and karma. I do think it's a very important time for Britain because Britain has a lot to answer for in this regard and I'd hate to be going around carrying all that baggage. I think it would be great to have Prince Charles come to Ireland and actually say: 'There has been a terrible tragedy here and we're a part of it and let's try to work out way out.' I mean something like that would do. What else are royalty good for? - 1995, about 'North and South of the River'

I still have very strong feelings about such matters. All the prisoners aren't out and all the people who are starving aren't fed, so it goes on. But you see, the first responsibility of a rock 'n' roll star is not to be dull. I think it's part of the job to have jeopardy. At least unreliable and at best human sacrifice and self-mutilation. It's cool to be concerned about the environment and have a political attitude but only if it brings you close to your real job as a firework. So martyrdom is cool, you know, the business of getting up on the cross. I don't think in the '80s we were rock 'n' roll. I think we were the loudest folk band. And now we're a rock 'n' roll band and I know that the best way to make the same point is to be a bit smarter. - 1995, about Greenpeace and Amnesty International

I woke up with a bleeding hangover and I had a melody in my head. I wrote it down and it sounded like a Bob Dylan song, and I thought maybe it was a Bob Dylan song - signs of megalomania in that - and I just happened to be seeing him later on that day and I said, 'That isn't one of yours is it?' and he said, 'No but you know, we could write it now.' I'm just a fan, that's actually part of the reason for working with all these people... Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra. I'm corny enough to believe in lineage. And there's the Old Testament idea of catching the blessing. I just run around hoping these people will lay hands on me and I just get the vibe. - 1995

Well first of all, I am God. And Liam is my only son. I think they are both good songwriters and everything but I do think that when that guy Liam sings that there is something, there's some sort of ache, as well as the anger, and it's the ache that separates some music from others. It has to be magic. His band are great. He's...he's...he's... I'm very pleased with myself.' I like the girlfriend of the guy in Blur. Elastica, she's got a great band. They're good. There bands really want to be great bans and be like the Stones and the Beatles. That's really interesting because in the '80s you were hung for such ambitions and the indie thing really kneecapped rock 'n' roll. I really hope that there are some great bands that come out of this and go all the way. If you are shy and you become a potter, you don't join a rock 'n' roll band. I hope Blur and Oasis take on the world and fuck up the mainstream. - 1995, when asked 'Who's closer to God, Blur or Oasis?'

I don't really go in for it myself. I am a believer. But I am a really bad advert. - 1995, about religion

It's hard to believe, hard to be a believer, when you see the way the things are in the world. But I am a believer! - 1997

We spent a lot of the '80s ducking and bobbing and weaving, running from the ghosts of things that really weren't so scary after all. We were scared the business would overtake us; we were scared of the nonsense. I think we held onto the music too tightly. But now we've learned to laugh at it all and find fun in everything, because there is a ridiculous side to rock 'n' roll, and you just have to learn to live with it. - New York Times March 1992

It's almost impossible to be married and on the road, but Ali is able to make it work. A year went by when I hardly saw her at all. I was coming in when she was walking out the door. Still she's a very strong person and she doesn't take any shit from me.

All the best songs are co-written by God. - 1987

And at the moment I'm on retreat, I mean in the meditative sense rather than surrender. I'm in a very blissed-out state. I'm really excited about getting older because all my heroes are in their fifties and sixties. I do think that when I'm 60 I will finally be cool. Not that that is high up on my list, but I will be and so will a lot of my mates. We're going to be badass. - 2001

If you're smart you create a world where you shrink in size and then you find oxygen and room to maneuvre. If you're not, then you shrink your world and tower above it, which is my experience of a lot of folk. - 2001

This is a good song but Joey Ramone made it a great one. He's changed it for me forever. I want to say to New York City that The Ramones were ground zero for us. It's where we started. - 2001

On one level I feel that if you're shy and want to make private work for your friends, be a potter! But what I mean by the band is The One. It's something to do with the moment that music breaks out of its box and suddenly is relevant to a wider world. It's the embrace of it. That's what turns us on.

My children will tell me to turn down my Bono-ness occasionally. I think it's something to do with going into one. You forget your circumstances, the laws of gravity, everything. I'm not sure what the thrill is of watching Bono. I think it must be something along the lines of the way you might watch one of those guys who jumps off tall buildings in New York with a few plastic bags as parachutes. It's a slightly will-he-or-won't-he thrill.

I think Bono would be the first to admit that lyric writing doesn't come easily because it's so much to do with the baring of his soul. It doesn't matter whether it's to one or fifty thousand. When he's writing a lyrics he might have three or four ideas on the boil. That song was particularly difficult because he had tried three or four times. The first and foremost thing is, he has to understand where this song is coming from. Until it has something concrete he'll continue to search. That is the first thing that has to be dealt with. You came in last night and you heard it and your point of view was quite different from the way we'd been hearing it. That gave him a spur. Then he goes one stage further and chips away here, chips away there, until he's ninety percent done. Then, okay, there's a couple of couplets that aren't quite right, he can go away and I'll let him off the hook. He can leave that till tomorrow. And obviously a lot of times Bono will worry about his actual performance as well as his lyric. (U2 At the End of the World 221) - FLOOD

He was a very exasperating child; he wasn't a bad child but bloody exasperating. My God, he really was...He was living in his own world and we were sort of superfluous to it. And it still applies today. He was an extraordinary kid. He was very hard to nail down. We couldn't get him to study when he was in school, just could not get him to study. He'd go off to study and the next thing you'd hear him strummin' the guitar. (U2 At the End of the World 315) - BOBBY HEWSON, BONO'S FATHER

Bono is very needy [which is an admirable trait]...He needs food for his mind all the time. I think that one of the reasons he may be interested in meeting people like me or like Wim Wenders or many of the other artists that are around here is that they give him food. I like that hunger in him because it means that he won't stand still. In a way, looking at the show it seems to me that it takes this kind of idea almost as far as it can go. (U2 At the End of the World 353) - SALMAN RUSHDIE