Bono's Quotes

#1. Your dream might not be as extreme as Bono's, but like him you may meet yours before you're ready to run after it.

Jon Acuff

#2. I hear it, can actually feel, can even make out the letters of the message hovering above Bono's head in orange wavy letters: I ... am ... the ... devil ... and I am ... just ... like ... you ...

Bret Easton Ellis

#3. Anyone that's involved in development has discovered that all the good work that's been done in development has been undone by the AIDS emergency.

Bono

#4. Bono is my inspiration - not only as a rock star but as a humanitarian. We aren't just put on this earth to sell records. Maybe it's because of my upbringing, but I do consider myself a moral guy.

Jesse McCartney

#5. 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

#6. Pop music often tells you everything is OK, while rock music tells you that it's not OK, but you can change it.

Bono

#7. The world is more malleable than you think, and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape.

Bono

#8. Walking the floor at a con dressed as Chewbacca, you might as well be Bono. I mean it's ridiculous. People just walk up and grab you and hold you, because they love Chewbacca so much.

Adam Savage

#9. I've been embraced by a new community. That's what happens when you're finally honest about who you are; you find others like you.

Chaz Bono

#10. I'm just a regular guy. All these ideas that children shouldn't watch me, I'm going to be confusing, all this stuff, it's crazy.

Chaz Bono

#11. Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building.

Bono

#12. The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people's minds.

Edward De Bono

#13. I absolutely believe in assimilation. I don't believe I'm any different from straight people. My wants and needs are the same as theirs. I don't look at sexual orientation as that big of a deal. It's just an orientation.

Chaz Bono

#14. I've been an activist in the LGBT community for a long time. I think nothing's changed, I'm just a little bit more focused on the 'T' now than I was on the 'L' or the 'G.'

Chaz Bono

#15. Celebrity is ridiculous and silly and it's mad that people like me are listened to - you know, rap stars and movie stars.

Bono

#16. There's a gender in your brain and a gender in your body. For 99 percent of people, those things are in alignment. For transgender people, they're mismatched. That's all it is. It's not complicated, it's not a neurosis. It's a mix-up. It's a birth defect, like a cleft palate.

Chaz Bono

#17. You watch Bono in a room - and we're talking about a room of thousands swarming around him - he'll take every single person and make that moment about them. You can pat him on the back or pull his arm, he's not looking away from the person he's talking to.

George Stroumboulopoulos

#18. Don't cling to fame. You're just borrowing it. It's like money. You're going to die, and somebody else is going to get it.

Sonny Bono

#19. I get to hear the really good or the really bad things in the press, but I don't read it. I can afford to say that because public opinion does not drive U2's audience.

Bono

#20. I thought, transgender people are much worse off than I am. That's why they're willing to risk everything to be who they are. But the older I got, the harder it got to stay in my body.

Chaz Bono

#21. 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.

Bono

#22. It's a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That's where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head.

Bono

#23. Technology is huge; I wanted to learn about it. People might say that's odd, but I think it's odd if artists aren't interested in the world around them. I'm always chasing that.

Bono

#24. It's always amazed me how little attention philosophers, psychologists, or anyone else actually has paid to humor.

Edward De Bono

#25. With all due respect to lawyers, it's wonderful that you have this intricate knowledge. You break down words to the nth degree. And sometimes I find it rather disgusting. And it goes on and on.

Sonny Bono

#26. 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

#27. I remember when we did our first read-through, Sonny [Bono] looks at the script and he goes, 'Okay, I'll see you guys later. Chai-ay-oh!' And I said, 'It's ciao! Aren't you Italian? C-i-a-o doesn't spell chai-ay-oh.' [Laughs.] Sonny's dead, so he won't be embarrassed if I tell that story.

Teri Garr

#28. The reason I like the game chess is because each move has countless repercussions, but you're in charge of them. And it's your ability to see into the future and the effects of the decisions you've made that males you either a good or not a good chess player. It's not luck.

Bono

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

Bono

#30. When I met Bono at the Cannes Film festival while I was there for the film 'United 93,' he said to me, 'That's a great film, brother. Thank you for your courage in making it.' I plotzed.

David Alan Basche

#31. Bono as we all know, is in love with the world, he's enamoured by it. I'm enraged by it. He wants to give the world a great big hug, I want to punch its lights out.

Bob Geldof

#32. Sub-Saharan Africa is also home to 400 million of the world's poorest people.

Bono

#33. 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

#34. I don't think you have to go out and become Secretary of State or be Bono but I think it's to let people know that whatever they do in their life that that's good.

Maria Shriver

#35. On the phone, it's about as intimate as it can get. The person's right in your ear. You got to be careful on the phone. You can leave yourself wide open

Bono

#36. 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

#37. It's so sweet, I feel like my teeth are rotting when I listen to the radio.

Bono

#38. Peace is the opposite of dreaming. It's built slowly and surely through brutal compromises and tiny victories that you don't even see. It's a messy business, bringing peace into the world.

Bono

#39. It's stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

Bono

#40. It's still very difficult for me to rely. Your weakness, the blessing of your weakness is it forces you into friendships. The things that you lack, you look for in others.

Bono

#41. 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.

Bono

#42. 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

#43. It wouldn't cost too much to change the rules of trade so that poor countries can work their way out of poverty. But the world's leaders won't act unless they hear enough people telling them. And every day they fail to act, thousands of people die because they can't afford the basics of survival.

Edward De Bono

#44. ISIS and these kinds of extremists are a death cult. We're a life cult. Rock 'n' roll is a life force, and it's joy as an act of defiance.

Bono

#45. Facebook are an amazing team, a brilliant team. It's a technology that brings people together.

Bono

#46. Be the Mick Jagger of the mailroom, the Warren Buffet of bookkeeping and the Bono of stapler selling.

Robin S

#47. It's not enough to rage against the lie.. you've got to replace it with the truth.

Edward De Bono

#48. I've met so many of my idols, but the one person that has eluded me is Bono. But because he's done 'Spider-Man,' I keep thinking maybe, through a Broadway connection, somehow our paths will eventually merge.

Idina Menzel

#49. It's annoying, but justice and equality are mates. Aren't they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

Bono

#50. You've got to give someone like Cher a lot of credit. She's worked very hard to get where she is. I can't take that away from her.

Sonny Bono

#51. There's a danger in the internet and social media. The notion that information is enough, that more and more information is enough, that you don't have to think, you just have to get more information - gets very dangerous.

Edward De Bono

#52. I think ABBA have a pure joy to their music and that's what makes them extraordinary.

Bono

#53. I'm tired of dreaming. I'm into doing at the moment. It's, like, let's only have goals that we can go after.

Edward De Bono

#54. As you get older it's more confusing. Suddenly, there's more pressure to fit in to your assigned gender.

Chaz Bono

#55. You hold onto religion, you know, rules, regulations, traditions. I think what God is interested in is people's hearts, and that's hard enough.

Edward De Bono

#56. When you align yourself with God's purpose as described in the Scriptures, something special happens to your life.

Bono

#57. Selling out is doing something you don't really want to do for money. That's what selling out is.

Bono

#58. A painter may be looking at the world in a way which is very different from everyone else. If he's a craftsman, he can get other people to see the world through his eyes, and so he enlarges our vision, perception, and there's great value in that.

Edward De Bono

#59. America is not just a country, it's an idea, and real Americans are getting busy.

Bono

#60. But more than anything else, for the British folks Irish people were all terrorists. So when we went to Britain, it was always a lot of resistance to U2. And that's why we came to America.

Bono

#61. 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.

Bono

#62. Obviously the transgender movement has not progressed in the way that the gay and lesbian movement has. But I'm an activist - that's just the kind of person I am.

Chaz Bono

#63. Created for MTV in 1990, the sharply observed, pop-conscious Ben Stiller Show - featuring its star's lacerating impersonations of Bono, Tom Cruise, and Eddie Munster, among others - subsequently moved to Fox TV and copped an Emmy for writing.

Manohla Dargis

#64. 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.

Bono

#65. Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its apologist.

Bono

#66. U2's best work has always been when we didn't know what we're doing.

Bono

#67. God's Spirit moves through us and the world at a pace that can never be constricted by any one religious paradigm.

Bono

#68. The great gifts of models are not that they're more beautiful than the next person, it's that they're able to be photographed and not be self-conscious.

Bono

#69. It's quite widespread in rock culture, that mythology of the shooting star.
I'd rather be the North star. As bob (Dylan) says, you can navigate by it.

Bono

#70. There's no way the person who made these lists actually has kids. They should be shot. And at this moment, I would defend the person who shoots them, pro bono. Just saying.

Emma Chase

#71. Bono give you any terms?"
"Me, the Crusader, and you. Tonight."
How nice. A party for the top three on the upir's most wanted list.

Ilona Andrews

#72. De Bono argues that the West's tradition of settling disagreement by debate or argument is an example of overreliance on logic.

Steve Volk

#73. By the same token, I think news has more and more of a pro bono aspect to all the networks. When we do our election coverages throughout this coming year, it's not a money-maker for us. It is more of a public service situation.

Leslie Moonves

#74. 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

#75. A lot of parents never speak to their transgender kids again; that's not the case in my family.

Chaz Bono

#76. As frustrating as it is to not have a record come out, I have to make sure that it's worth putting out. I have to be trying to say something, for one. I have to not oversell what I'm trying to say. I can't 'Bono' it.

Isaac Brock

#77. It's not only joy as an act of defiance; it's business as usual as an act of defiance. This is just: Do your thing.

Bono

#78. 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

#79. When you truly accept that those children in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God's eyes or even in just your eyes, then your life is forever changed; you see something that you can't un-see.

Bono

#80. There are few people who define the word, 'rock star' better than U2's Bono. He's revered the world over not just for leading one of the biggest bands ever, but for his very public work on behalf of the underprivileged in Africa.

Daryn Kagan

#81. Stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Find out what God's doing. It's already blessed.

Bono

#82. I mean, it's so normal for everybody to have a huge ego, it's great. It's great. Otherwise, everybody would act like Bono, you know, really big.

Kim Deal

#83. 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.

Bono

#84. Child mortality [since 2000 is] down by 2.65 million a year. That's a rate of 7,256 children's lives saved each day ... It drives me nuts that most people don't seem to know this news.

Edward De Bono

#85. To me, a faith in Jesus Christ that is not aligned with the poor ... it's nothing.

Edward De Bono

#86. Rock 'n' roll is ridiculous. It's absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we're wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.

Bono

#87. 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.

Bono

#88. When those people get up at the Grammys and say, "I thank God", I always imagine God going, "Oh, don't, please don't thank me for that one. Please, oh, that's an awful one! Don't thank me for that - that's a piece of crap !"

Bono

#89. What is the difference between God and Bono? God doesn't wander down Grafton Street thinking he's Bono.

Louis Walsh

#90. At its core, the FCC's plan to regulate the Internet will force businesses and people to check first with the government and get permission to innovate.

Mary Bono

#91. I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery. The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that's why they're so relatable.

Bono

#92. The reason I'm attracted to the light of Scripture is because there's another side of me that is dark. The reason I am interested in men of peace is because I'm not like them and would like to be. I'm not someone in real life who turns the other cheek.

Bono

#93. I'm not ready to be that guy who can meet with world leaders and all that. It's tremendous what Bono does. I don't know if I could do it, not the way he does. I don't think many people could.

Eddie Vedder

#94. 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

#95. 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

#96. We must get rid of the IRS. It's a bureaucracy fraught with totalitarianism.

Sonny Bono

#97. When the positive revolution takes hold it will no longer be enough for politicians to gain points through attack or being negative. Politicians will be expected to be constructive.

Edward De Bono

#98. I used to murder people for money, but these days it's more of a survival technique.

Jennifer Estep

#99. It's nice that established and emerging stars agree to appear in ambitious low-budget films. Such pro-bono work gives the movie a higher profile and the actors a potentially more distinguished resume.

Richard Corliss

#100. What's so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as they're being gospel and songs of praise, they are also the blues.

Bono