U2 Quotes
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Weirdly enough, if I'm having trouble with a guitar part - not the playing of it but the writing - I'll mess around with echo and other effects, just turn everything up and make it as crazy as can be, and it winds up taking me somewhere. I've found so many guitar parts from echo. It's limitless.
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Music is such a great communicator. It breaks down linguistic barriers, cultural barriers, it basically reaches out. That's when rock n' roll succeeds, and that's what virtuosity is all about.
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The problem for most people as they get older is that they start to buy into their own bullshit to the extent that they just have to eliminate from their inner sanctum anyone who is going to really challenge it. But I think all bandmates of U2 were lucky enough to have the four of us respect and regard each other to the extent that we're kind of always looking out for one another, so none of us can get away with buying into the bullshit.
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People say, 'Why don't you do interviews? What do you think about this? What do you think about that?' My job in the band is to play drums, to get up on stage and hold the band together. That's what I do. At the end of the day that's all that's important. Everything else is irrelevant.
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Sing the melody line you hear in your own head. Remember, you don't owe anybody any explanations, you don't owe your parents any explanations, you don't owe your professors any explanations.
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Segregation. There was another one. America sees this now but it took a civil rights movement to betray their age. And 50 years ago the U.S. Supreme Court betrayed the age May 17, 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education came down and put the lie to the idea that separate can ever really be equal. Amen to that.
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You see, rock and roll isn't a career or hobby - it's a life force. It's something very essential.
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First love is alright, as far as it goes. Last love – that’s the one I’m interested in.
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One of the good things about globalization is it has created a single international music community, and I feel very much part of it.
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Performing at this level requires an absolute commitment and dedication. You can't half commit.
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The biggest misconception about me was that I was some kind of wild, crazy rock'n'roll firework. It was an easy image to pick up on, but I'd like to think I was a little deeper than that.
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Advertising and art are getting all mixed up. I think some of the most exciting pieces of TV are the commercials.
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Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will. Slavery was one of them and the people who best served that age were the ones who called it as it was - which was ungodly and inhuman. Ben Franklin called it what it was when he became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.
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I don't think anybody could imagine the life that I've been lucky enough to have. It's been an incredible journey.
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The big cop-out would be to accept popularity rather than opting to try to create potent work. It's so easy to do the popular thing, the expected thing, and that's where you start to cheat yourself - and your fans, in the end - because there's an inherent dishonesty in pandering and dishing up what everyone's expecting.
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I think it's hard to come to a U2 show and just eat hot dogs and drink a soda, and not be moved by it.
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My name is Bono and I am a rock star.
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Unfortunately, as far as the music is concerned, what defines relevance is whether you are on the radio or whether you are on the cover of a magazine or whether you're winning MTV awards, and so on and so forth.
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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.
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Can you imagine your second album - the difficult second album - it's about God? Everyone is tearing their hair out and Chris Blackwell says, 'It's okay. There's Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan, it's a tradition. We can get through it.
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Then Bono arrived, and he meant to play the guitar, but he couldn't play very well, so he started to sing. He couldn't do that either. But he was such a charismatic character that he was in the band anyway, as soon as he arrived. I was in charge for the first five minutes, but as soon as Bono got there, I was out of a job.
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It doesn't matter what songs we sing. I'm a drummer. Chicks dig me.
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If Bono left, we could carry on. If I left, we'd be screwed.
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We had a street gang that was very vivid - very surreal. We were fans of Monty Python. We'd put on performances in the city center of Dublin. I'd get on the bus with a stepladder and an electric drill. Mad shit. Humor became our weapon. Just stand there, quiet - with the drill in my hand. Stupid teenage shit.