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.'
— Bono
I don't let my religious world get too complicated.
Politeness is, you know, is a wonderful thing. Manners are in fact, really important thing. But remember, Jesus didn't have many manners as we now know.
Until it's on the radio or online, it's not real. With U2, our album isn't finished until it's in the stores.
Because I was suspicious of the traditional Christian church, I tended to tar them all with the same brush. That was a mistake, because there are righteous people working in a whole rainbow of belief systems - from Hasidic Jews to right-wing Bible Belters to charismatic Catholics.
Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.
Jesus isn't lettin' you off the hook. The Scriptures don't let you off the hook so easily... When people say, you know, 'Good teacher', 'Prophet', 'Really nice guy' ... this is not how Jesus thought of Himself.
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.
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.
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.
In my view, the only thing worse than a rock star is a rock star with a conscience.
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.
I'm the man that brought you the mullet.
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.
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?'
The most powerful idea that's entered the world in the last few thousand years - the idea of grace - is the reason I would like to be a Christian.
God is so big. It's a gigantic concept in God. The idea that God might love us and be interested in us is kind of huge and gigantic, but we turn it, because we're small-minded, into this tiny, petty, often greedy version of God, that is religion.
What's so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as they're being gospel and songs of praise, they are also the blues.
My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love.
I think 'Invisible' is a great song, but I don't know how accessible it is.
I'm actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.
But there is a difference between cozying up to power and being close to power.
I always think if you are asking somebody for something it is a good idea to give them something first.
It's very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.
Facts, like people, want to be free - and when they're free, liberty is usually around the corner.
I have been working for Africans since I was 18, when I got involved with the Nelson Mandela concerts. I got involved with debt cancellation because Desmond Tutu demanded that the world respond to that situation.
Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don't know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.
U2's best work has always been when we didn't know what we're doing.
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.
There was a moment when Prince did rock & roll with a sponge-y seductive sound. I think that's what was in our head for 'Get On Your Boots.' But actually, the song is much more punk rock.
I put Catholic guilt to work pretty good for a rich rock star.
The great music for so many artists - the Beatles, the Rolling Stones - was always at the moment when they were closest to pop. It would be easy for U2 to go off and have a concept album, but I want us to stay in the pop fray.
I think carrying moral baggage is very dangerous for an artist. If you have a duty, it's to be true and not cover up the cracks.
I used to - my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I've always heard kind of melodies in my head.
There's nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is.
Mandela's heroism is the heroism of a man who suffered so badly for what he thought of as freedom. And yet when he had the upper hand he has this incredible self-control and these incredible leadership qualities.
With all singers, insecurity is your best security. That's why we're such loud people and why we walk all funny. You think, 'Are people interested?' But I think our band has something and they know we don't just put albums out. We do think about it.
I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times.
As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place.
I believe that Jesus was, you know, the Son of God. And I understand that... we need to be really, really respectful to people who find that ridiculous and... preposterous.
Poverty breeds despair. We know this. Despair breeds violence. We know this. In turbulent times, isn't it cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?
Where you live in the world should not determine whether you live in the world.
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.
Rock stars are good at making noise.
I'm a singer, not a politician, and I think you don't want the two to get confused. It's not OK to be on CNN talking about people starving and then tell the interviewer that your new album is coming out in six months.
U2 was involved in Live Aid, and I ended up going to Ethiopia and working there for some time with my wife, Ali.
Convictions, in the end, they can be dangerous, but a world without them is just kind of an awful kind of gray, amorphous mass.
I'm home a lot. Because I live in Ireland, we can live under the celebrity radar. I might go missing for a whole year.
What I like about pop music, and why I'm still attracted to it, is that in the end it becomes our folk music.
God's Spirit moves through us and the world at a pace that can never be constricted by any one religious paradigm. I love that.
