Bono > Quotes

“Pop music often tells you everything is OK, while rock music tells you that it's not OK, but you can change it.”
― Bono, On the Move

“Stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Find out what God's doing. It's already blessed.”
― Bono

“Music can change the world because it can change people.”
― Bono

“Sometimes religion gets in the way of God.”
― Bono

“To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.”
― Bono

“Christians are hard to tolerate; I don’t know how Jesus does it”
― Bono

“Dream up the kind of world you want to live in. Dream out loud.”
― Bono

“Feelings are much stronger than thoughts. We are all led by instinct, and our intellect catches up later”
― Bono

“You don't become an 'artist' unless you've got something missing somewhere. Blaise Pascal called it a God-shaped hole. Everyone's got one but some are blacker and wider than others. It's a feeling of being abandoned,cut adrift in space and time-sometimes following the loss of a loved one. You can never completely fill that hole-you can try with songs,family,faith and by living a full life...but when things are silent, you can still hear the hissing of what's missing.”
― Bono

“In general people put too much faith in the rich, the famous, the politicians, and not enough faith in themselves.”
― Bono

“Perspective is the cure for depression.”
― Bono

“Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will.”
― Bono, U2 By U2

“The right to be irresponsible and stupid is something I hold very dear. And luckily it is something I do well.”
― Bono

“Even though I'm a believer, I still find it really hard to be around other believers. They make me nervous, they make me twitch. I sorta watch my back.”
― Bono

“At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms, God is looking for action.”
― Bono

“I love America and I hate it. I'm torn between the two. I have two conflicting visions of America. One is a kind of dream landscape and the other is a kind of black comedy.”
― Bono

“Whenever I see grace, I’m moved.”
― Bono

“The human heart is greedy; it will use religion, color, or any other excuse to justify its greed. Blame the human heart.”
― Bono

“Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gift one person can give another.
”
― Bono

“Laughter is eternity if joy is real.”
― Bono

“In my dream, I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows they learned to swim”
― Bono

“God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.”
― Bono

“It is impossible to meet God without abandon, without exposing yourself, being raw.”
― Bono, Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas

“We're starting our own religion at last. The Order of Frisbeetarians. We believe that when you die, your soul ascends to a rooftop and you can never get it back.”
― Bono

“I'm a musician. I write songs. I just hope when the day is done I've been able to tear a little corner off of the darkness.”
― Bono

“I wish to begin again on a daily basis. To be born again every day is something that I try to do. And I'm deadly serious about that.”
― Bono, Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas

“We can't fix all problems but we must fix the ones we can”
― Bono

“There is a root arrogance in any writer; a hugely arrogant assumption that anyone is going to listen to them.”
― Bono

“I will admit that we are attracted to issues that unify people rather than divide them.”
― Bono

“For all that "I was lost, I am found," it is probably more accurate to say, "I was really lost, I'm a little less so at the moment.”
― Bono, U2 by U2

“Smack in the centre of contradiction is the place to be.”
― Bono

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

“I wouldn't run for President. I wouldn't want to move to a smaller house.”
― Bono

“I'm never nervous when I go to meet heads of state. I feel they should be nervous, because they are the ones who'll be held accountable for the lives their decisions will impact the most.”
― Bono, Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas

“There's no retirement for an artist,its your way of living so theres no end to it.”
― Bono

“The strangest thing has happened. I really missed my dog. That's never happened to me before. You know, on a long tour you do hear people saying they miss their pets. I never have. But last night I started really missing my dog.
It's very odd, 'cause I don't have a dog.”
― Bono

“There's a point where you find yourself tiptoeing as an artist, and then you know that you're in the wrong place.”
― Bono

“Religion often gets in the way of God.”
― Bono

“If I don't understand it, it must be art.”
― Bono

“To touch is to heal, to hurt is to steal, if you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel - on your knees boy!”
― Bono

“One Life, with each other, Sisters, Brothers...”
― Bono

“People rid the room of argument until they have no one left — except people who agree with them. It is understandable. But I like a good argument.”
― Bono

“Every artist is a cannibal/every poet is a thief/all kill for inspiration/and then sing about the grief.”
― Bono

“What we're about in this band, I hope...is that we put people before ideas.”
― Bono

“I am a Christian - but sometimes I feel very removed from Christianity. The Jesus Christ that I believe in was the man who turned over the tables in the temple and threw the money-changers out - substitute T.V. evangelists if you like…why in the West, do we spend so much money on extending the arms race instead of wiping out malaria, which could be eradicated given ten minutes worth of the world's arm budget? To me, we are living in the most un-Christian times. When I see these racketeers, the snake-oil salesmen on these right-winged television stations, asking for not your $20.00, or your $50.00, but your $100.00 in the name of Jesus Christ, I just want to throw up!!”
― Bono

“Essentially, I'm a very real person; good and bad. And the public image is one of being very good, I suppose. But one of the reasons I'm attracted to people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Christ, to pacifism, is because naturally, I'm the guy that would not turn the other cheek - but, when people see you're attracted to that, they think you are that.”
― Bono

“The most profound voice of any musician I have ever heard. Joe (Strummer) took his message to the world, and the world listened. He managed to influence more than one generation with his innovative and determined manner, and I am not alone in repeatedly turning to his thoughts and lyrics when searching for inspiration. The Clash was the greatest rock band. They wrote the rule book for U2.”
― Bono

“I think that the camera loves peopke who...loathe the camera (Bono)”
― Bono, Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas

“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)”
― Bono, Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas

“Music can change the world because it can change people”
― Bono