Bono: "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."

Bono: "You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It's very real. It's very strong."

Bono: "Convictions, in the end, they can be dangerous, but a world without them is just kind of an awful kind of gray, amorphous mass."

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

Bono: "If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It's a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting."

Bono: "America is not just a country, it's an idea, and real Americans are getting busy."

Bono: "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 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."

Bono: "It's so sweet, I feel like my teeth are rotting when I listen to the radio."

Bono: "It's not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions."

Bono: "Hanging out with politicians and corporations is very unhip work. But I think that the U2 audience have turned out to be incredibly subtle in their understanding."

Bono: "We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong."

Bono: "When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals."

Bono: "What I like about pop music, and why I'm still attracted to it, is that in the end it becomes our folk music."

Bono: "I don't let my religious world get too complicated."

Bono: "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?'"

Bono: "I am, as a character, at times, a little overbearing. I recognize that."

Bono: "Overcoming my dad telling me that I could never amount to anything is what has made me the megalomaniac that you see today."

Bono: "U2 is an original species... there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone."

Bono: "As hard as it is, as ghetto as it is, hip-hop is pop music. It's the sound of music getting out of the ghetto, while rock is looking for a ghetto."

Bono: "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."

Bono: "As a rock star, I have two instincts, I want to have fun, and I want to change the world. I have a chance to do both."

Bono: "I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times."

Bono: "Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We're standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade."

Bono: "When people say, you know, 'Good teacher,' 'Prophet,' 'Really nice guy'... this is not how Jesus thought of Himself. So you're left with a challenge in that, which is either Jesus was who he said he was or a complete and utter nut case. You have to make a choice on that."

Bono: "The less you know, the more you believe."