BONO QUOTES
Irish singer & songwriter (1960- )
Love will have its day.
BONO
"North and South of the River"
Don't get me too excited because I use four letter words when I get excited.
BONO
2004 PENN Address
Jesus never let me down
You know Jesus used to show me the score
Then they put Jesus in show business
Now it's hard to get in the door.
BONO
"If God Will Send His Angels"
I know idealism is not playing on the radio right now, you don't see it on TV, irony is on heavy rotation, the knowingness, the smirk, the tired joke. I've tried them all out but I'll tell you this ... idealism is under siege beset by materialism, narcissism and all the other isms of indifference. Baggism, Shaggism. Raggism. Notism, graduationism, chismism, I don't know. Where's John Lennon when you need him?
BONO
2004 PENN Address
Progressive rock was the enemy in 1976. And it still is. And it has many, many faces. This beast is lurking everywhere. It can describe itself as indie rock. It's the same [blanking] thing. It's misery. I have seen so many great minds struck down by it.
BONO
Chicago Tribune, May 13, 2005
America is not just a country, it's an idea.
BONO
2004 PENN Address
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. I remember standing under a piano at my grandmother's house, when the keys of the piano were higher than my head and kind of pressing down on the keys, and then hearing one note and then looking for another one to follow it, because you always -- you know, if you're a musician or if you're a songwriter, somehow when you hear one note, you hear another one.
BONO
interview, Larry King Weekend, December 1, 2002
How long, how long must we sing this song?
BONO
"Sunday Bloody Sunday"
Great ideas and great melodies have a lot in common.
BONO
interview, Larry King Weekend, 2002
People say songs are like your children, no they are like your parents. They tell you what to do, they tell you how to behave, they tell you how to misbehave, how to dress. Everything you do is directed by the songs.
BONO
The Charlie Rose Show, May 16, 2013
First of all, David's a musician, so I'm gonna like him.... And what's so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as their being Gospel and songs of praise, they are also the Blues. 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.
BONO
radio interview, Focus on the Family, June 25, 2013
Ireland has a very different attitude to success than a lot of places, certainly than over here in the United States. In the United States, you look at the guy that lives in the mansion on the hill, and you think, you know, one day, if I work really hard, I could live in that mansion. In Ireland, people look up at the guy in the mansion on the hill and go, one day, I'm going to get that bastard. It's a different mind-set.
BONO
interview, Larry King Weekend, December 1, 2002
For me it's a puzzle. I hear strains of a melody, and only when I work it out to its end can I be at peace. Until then it's like a twitch.
BONO
Oprah Magazine, April 2004
I have climbed highest mountains, I have run through the field, only to be with you. I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls, only to be with you. But I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
BONO
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
Anyone who finds there way to the front of a rock band, standing in the spotlight in the center of the stage, has definitely got a Messianic complex, and the shy ones, the kind of "oh, how did this happen to me" ones, they're the very worst kinds of Messianic complex. A lot of artists play that.
BONO
The Charlie Rose Show, May 16, 2013
I'm in love with this country called America. I'm a huge fan of America, I'm one of those annoying fans, you know the ones that read the CD notes and follow you into bathrooms and ask you all kinds of annoying questions about why you didn't live up to that ... I'm that kind of fan. I read the Declaration of Independence and I've read the Constitution of the United States, and they are some liner notes, dude.
BONO
2004 PENN Address
History, like God, is watching what we do.
BONO
remarks at National Prayer Breakfast, February 2, 2006
I don't believe the Devil, I don't believe his book, but the truth is not the same without the lies he made up.
BONO
"God Part II"
The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt.
BONO
Rolling Stone, November 3, 2005
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