“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.”

Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will.

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.

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.

If I ever reach heaven I expect to find three wonders there: first, to meet some I had not thought to see there; second, to miss some I had expected to see there; and third, the greatest wonder of all, to find myself there.

Hockey is a tough game.

It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

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. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

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.

It is impossible to meet God without abandon, without exposing yourself, being raw.

My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ.

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.

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.

There’s no retirement for an artist,its your way of living so theres no end to it.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did – or did not do – to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do.

You don’t become an ‘artist’ unless you’ve got something missing somewhere. Blaise Pascal called it a God-shaped hole.

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

Vision connects you. But it also separates you. In my work, and my life, I feel a desire to merge. Not in terms of losing my own identity… but theres a feeling that life is interconnected, that theres life in stones and rocks and trees and dirt, like there is in us.

Most people get into bands for three very simple rock and roll reasons: to get laid, to get fame, and to get rich.

I think we have the worst name in rock, I really do. It’s the worst name in the world

People from the rock and roll world have felt for years that electronic music had no soul, but now electronic music can not only have soul but have all the shapes in the world.

Ice in the West Antarctic and over Greenland, i.e., ice that’s over a rock at the moment, that will raise the level of the sea as it slides into the ocean, putting at risk everyone and everything that lives on the coasts, and that includes an enormous percentage of the world’s people.

Rock Band never got anybody a date. Never.

I don’t really remember a whole lot of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, really.

Videos destroyed the vitality of rock and roll. Before that, music said, “Listen to me.” Now it says, “Look at me.”