Whisper Into My Ear

[oliveu2cm]

Let's share our favorite quotes... something warm and comfortable on a Monday morning

Interviewer: "Do you consider yourself a good dancer, Bono?"
Bono: "I dance much better horizontally than vertically."

"I danced every night under a mirror ball with a young lady from the Zoo TV crowd. Every night during 'Love Is Blindness'. They were amazing. I love it so much. Some nights I fell in love. I never really spoke to these people, but that's okay."
- Bono in 1995

"I'm so looking forward to playing indoors, to be able to look at people and see the whites of their eyes."
-Larry, Revolver magazine, 2000

"...about the journey we'd been through as a band, as men in relationships, as sons of mothers and fathers. It was about the baggage that you have to live with, the sense of loss."

-- Adam, 2002, on All That You Can't Leave Behind



"When I look at it from stage at the U2 audience, it's like every night there's something going off there and that gives me a lot of hope."
The Edge, San Jose Mercury News, on the Elevation Tour

 

[Squishy Peanut]

"Work like you don't need money, love like you've never been hurt and dance like no one is watching"
- Bono


I can't remember where I read that but it's stuck with me and I love it

 

[carey02]

Here are some of my favorites

"In the song WOWY when it says 'and you give yourself away', everybody else in the group knows what that means. It's aout how I feel in U2 at times - exposed." - Bono

"Our belief in the people who come to see us is very strong. That's what's important about our relationship with our audience." - Bono

"I don't like music unless it has a healing effect. I don't like it when people leave concerts feeling edgy. I want people to leave our concerts feeling positive, a little more free. Things might look very gloomy but there is always hope." - Bono

"There's a lot of people that expect a lot of things from U2, and people will never get what they expect." - Bono

"I've got a book...I've written poems but I don't know if I'll publish them. If I do, I'll call it "FUCK OFF!! Volume 1". I get annoyed when people expect me to be a great all-arounder." - Bono

"If I am close to the music, and you are close to the music, then we are close to each other." - Bono

 

[Niamh_Saoirse]

Bono: "I warn you, I am completely unable to explain myself at times ... even to string three words together can be hard, and this can be tragic if people think you supposedly have a gift of the grab"

"I danced or kissed every night a young lady from Zoo TV crowd. They were amazing. I love it so much. Some nights I fell in love. I never really spoke to these people, but that's okay."


Q: If the four of you were in a fight, I mean a truly tough brawl, which one of you would kick the other three's asses? (NME interview, 2001)

Larry: Bono
Adam: Bono
Edge: Bono
Bono: Me

Bono:
The Holy Spirit is like a woman. Undependable. Joke! Joke

 

[Niamh_Saoirse]

Larry: "I can't even say the bloody word. Achtung Baby (Larry

Edge: He's far funnier, takes himself far less seriously than most people think.
He's wild, he's not reserved. None of the clich?s that spring to mind when you think of
most peoples' perception of him."(Edge on Bono)

Edge: When asked what he does when he returns home after a tour: "I have a terrible habit of
finding really unimportant, trivial, manual things to do. I'll go mow the lawn, or find
some piece of furniture that needs varnishing, or...paint the cat." (Edge)


-"I'm not sure if Irish people can dance... except for The Edge, that is, who is our own funky chicken." ---- Bono

-"The Edge is a really, really intense guy, he's got this incredibly high IQ, he's great at sorting out issues of worldly importance, it's just that he forgets the everyday things, like the chords of songs, where he is and so on." ---- Bono, 1983

About the Guys: "His [Edge's] gaze drifts off into the air, mentally subdividing God-knows-what complex equation. It turns out he's wondering if right now Larry is finding the fan letter Edge left lying conspicuously in the dressing room. The letter tells Edge that he is 'the best-looking member of U2. Bono has a big nose and Larry looks like an inflatable doll.' Edge got the note in Australia and he plans to keep leaving it out until Larry notices it. 'Bass players attract the weirdest fans,' Edge says. 'I tend to get the bespectacled MIT students. Bono gets the poets. And Larry, unfortunately, gets the girls.' Edge sighs and repeats the old saw: 'We should have gotten a Ringo.' The Beautiful Boy himself enters the cafeteria, showing no signs of having yet seen himself described as inflatable. Edge gets up to collect his mash note for next time." ---- Bill Flannagan, U2 At the End of the World

 

[Niamh_Saoirse]

-"The first night Edge was in a cloud of dry ice when he got out of the lemon and I couldn't see him, but I knew he wasn't playing his guitar when he should have been. And I didn't know what to do exactly. And then I just heard this giggling. He was laughing his head off. I caught him through the fog. There is just a smidgen of (Spinal Tap's) Derek Smalls about him at the moment. But listen, that's balls." ---- Bono, on PopMart


"Edge your problem is you are too tasteful!" ---- Bono

BP: When did you last wash the dishes or hoover?
ADAM: I'd say in the mid seventies.


BP: Did you ever think you were going to die?

LARRY: Yes, only on the back of Bono's motorbike!
EDGE: Only on the back of Bono's motorbike.
ADAM: Only in the back of Bono's car.
BONO: Die, no. Squashed, yes.


BP: From Greek mythology - the Snake had been a woman and a man, and said women enjoyed sex more than men. Do you think that's true?

BONO: What would I know- in Irish Mythology, there is no sex.


BP: Do you ever have nightmares?
LARRY: Yes.
BP: About what?
LARRY: You.


BP: Are you a star?
ADAM: Wishin'...
LARRY: I've been called worse.
EDGE: Only after dark.
BONO: No, a firework.....Well more of a banger, really


BP: What's in your pockets?
LARRY: Buttons for opening my gate (empties pockets) Lipsil, wallet, packet of Silk Cut cigarettes-nurses cigarettes! - homeopathic gear for sore throats, lighter, penknife.
BONO: I have no pockets.
ADAM: A load of phone numbers. Whose? Nah, I'm not telling.
EDGE: I don't have any in my trousers. In my coat (pulls everything out) there's my Gitanes, my Zippo, my keys and an awful lot of guitar picks. I pick them up everytime I leave rehearsal. I never put them back so on a given day it could be anything from ten to about fifty 'cos they just build up. I sometimes think they breed in there.


BP: If you were an animal, which animal would you be?
ADAM: A giraffe. Why? 'Cos then you'd meet other giraffes.
EDGE: One of the big cats, so I could just s-t-r-e-t-c-h out in the sun, a panther or a cheetah.
BONO: A wildebeest. You'd have to have a sense of humour with a name like that.
LARRY: Aaah! A fly. Because Bono wrote about a fly and what's good enough for Bono is good enough for me

 

[Niamh_Saoirse]

You can't surrender to melancholy; that's too easy. Joy is a subject I go on and on about. It's one of the only emotions you can't contrive. It's impossible. Despair and anger are easier to convey. Joy is right next to happiness, which is not so interesting, and sentimentality. Great rock 'n' roll, the raw stuff, is pure joy. It's that sense of being alive, of being grateful for your pulse."
-Bono, 2001


What about some McGuinness quotes, eh?


Do you play any musical instrument and if so have you ever been on a U2 album?

Paul-
No, I play no musicial instruments. I had an early and unhappy experience
with the piano when I was about 12 years old.
Since then my only contribution musically to a U2 album was some hand clapping
on one track on the War album.
I suppose the lesson from that is that I wasn't good enough to be asked
again.


-"Amid the uncertainty there are certain ideas that are so powerful and so right that you can hold onto them no matter how screwed up everything else is" Edge


In the last year it seems that U2 have done everything in the book - had a number one album and single, graduated to playing stadiums, and now a book, a movie and a live album are planned for 1988. What can you do for an encore?"
Edge: "Break up"

-"They [U2's parents] are still waiting for us to get proper jobs. I mean its kinda like 'Well you were lucky this time, but when are you gonna go back to school and become a doctor?'"- edge



-EDGE: "I just want to be respected for who I am."
OBNOXIOUS WOMAN: "And who are you, Dave Evans?"
EDGE: "A Big Rich Famous Rock Star!"

-"Oh, I hate to see cows playing tag. Makes you think the hamburger you're eating may have been playing kiss-and-run the day before." - Edge

"I think some of the most exciting pieces of TV are the commercials." - edge

 

[Jam Jar]

nice thread idea! My favorite at the moment:
"The Edge is slightly more shy, but as soon as you're gone he'll pour a can of coke over himself. He's slightly insane, actually....He was always the shy boy in school who wore pullovers, and he's super-intelligent. He and his brother have huge IQs." - Bono

 

[dsmith2904]

From the NME Question Machine...

Q: Please help solve a long-standing argument with my best mate: which is the better album 'Joshua Tree' or 'Achtung Baby'?
Edge: I don't think anyone could or should answer that question. You and your friend should carry on arguing.

Q: If each of you was a canned vegetable, what kind of vegetable would you be?
Edge: Palm hearts

Q: What scares the absolute bejesus out of you?
Edge: The middle of the night.

Q: Is it true that Paul Hewson is a bad car driver?
Adam: It's not a good look for him.
Larry: He's not great at the old driving.
Edge: What ever you do, do not get into a car with Bono.

Q: What was your dream as a child?
Edge: We're living it now.

Q: How do you like your pancakes?
Edge: Hot, dripping with butter and syrup. It's one of the only things I can cook.

Q: What would recommend listening to, besides the new album?
Edge: Some very good advice.

Q: If you were real life superheros, what would be your special powers?
Edge: We are real life superheros with very apparent powers.

Q: What annoys you most about the other band members?
Edge: The questions we get asked most are 'How are you in a band? Don't people grow out of bands?' Most people find it hard, as they grow up, to deal with friction. To us the friction in a sign of being really alive.

Q: If adam hadn't pinned that note on the school notice board back in 1976, where do you all think you would be now?
Edge: No idea, but I wouldn't be having this much fun.

Q: In your lives as rock stars you've been asked billions of questions. But I'm sure there's one you've always wanted to answer, but have never been asked. Which one is it ... and of course, what's the answer?
Edge: Why are you called U2? Answer: Mind your own fucking business.

Q: I saw you in Oslo on the Popmart Tour, that was the show when the Lemon didn't open. What were you thinking about when you were sat in there?
Edge: Is there a life vest under the seat?

 

[bonocrazy88]

Ali?

How about some Ali qutoes?

"Life's too serious to be taken seriously."

"Bono always says that he feels like a bit of litter around the house, that I just want to tidy him away."

Now some Bono ones:

BP Fallon: "Who's your heroine?"
Bono: "Ali. She's so sane, although she chooses to live with me."

Interviewer: "What does your wife call you? Does she call you Bono, or does she call you Paul?"
Bono: "She calls me 'Baby'."

Q: "Do you believe in love at first sight?"
Bono: "Yeah, I fell in love with Ali the first time I saw her. Absolutely. And the last time."

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

"Goodbye to all you neo Nazis. I hope they give you Aushwitz." (MacPhisto)

"Fear is the opposite of faith."

"I want to play the guitar very badly and I DO play the guitar very badly."

"I have a weakness for belly dancers; they make me WRIGGLE."

And one from Larry that I especially love:

Kurt Loder: "Surely there is more to Popmart."
Larry: "Don't call me Shirley!"

 

[Sherry Darling]

"God is not looking for prayers, he is looking for action" ~Bono

"The important thing to remember is that this is not about charity, its about justice" ~Bono, on debt cancellation

"This is really, really fucking brilliant" ~Bono on his new trophy

"He's a great bunch of guys" ~Edge on Bono

And Ali: "At the end of the day, I really don't care what others think, so long as I feel strong about myself"

sd

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

I like those.

Let's see, some of my favorite Bono ones I can think of right now:

Well, of course there's the whole infamous rant from the R&H version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

?I can't quite remember whose idea it was. All I know is that Larry looked like some kind of porn star. Edge looked like his sister Jill, I looked like Barbara Bush and Adam hasn't taken the dress off.?-On dressing up in drag for the ?One? video

?My strongest trait is curiosity, I'm just lifting stones, you know, opening doors. Looking out windows, around corners, up skirts."

"I mean, I'd love to see a united Ireland but I don't believe you can put a gun to someone's head to make him see your way.?

"It's a remarkable thing, the idea that there's some sort of hierarchy to sin. It's something I can never figure out, the idea that sexual immorality is somehow much worse than, say, institutional greed." (A-men!)

Couple of other ones:

?He's a poet. He's a philosopher. And last night, I think I saw him walking on water.?-Mick Jagger introducing Bono as he received his MTV Free Your Mind award, November 1999

?We get our skis on and Bono falls over immediately.?-Adam, 1982

Angela

 

[Kariann]

"You only get disillusioned if you had illusions to begin with."
Bono

There is another one that I really like but I can't remember it exactly so I'll have to go look it up. Some of the ones I really like have already been posted!

 

[celia]

Music can change the world because it can change people. - BONO


Making records is like making hot dogs. You'll probably enjoy them more if you don't see how it's done." - BONO (lol)


"You have no choice of subject matter. You write what's in your heart and on your mind unless of course it's crap in which case it means you've thought about it too much." - BONO


"I think that Edge is the head of the band, I'm the heart, and Adam and Larry are the feet." - BONO (haha)


"If I am close to the music, and you are close to the music, we are close to each other."

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I like that one from - something like "If you're really good friends w/ The Edge you can just call him "the"

That U2 com chat w/ Edge is full of some cute quotes...

Edge is funny

 

[oliveu2cm]

These make me happy

 

[Nikkievox]

BP: Do you believe in flying saucers?
BONO: In my kitchen they're an everyday thing.
BP: Have you ever seen one?
BONO: She's a good shot.

Nikkievox

 

[Sevikins]

"We make music you can have sex to" -- Bono


That one always stuck to me for some reason...

 

[Schmeg]

"There's quite a party atmosphere whenever I announce we're going on tour. I don't take it personally."
-- Bono, 1993, about the Hewson family


"You can download an atmosphere and dial up a groove, but there's a certain magic when three musicians and a dyslexic get together and play in a room."
-- Bono, 1999

"I got a job as a petrol-pump attendant so that I could write when the cars weren't coming in. But then we had the oil crisis, and we had those queues for miles, and the cars just kept coming, so I quit."
-- Bono, discussing his early teen years

"I don't want to be so deep that people have to drown to relate to me."
-- Bono, 1987

"I'm the only person I know who takes off his sunglasses to keep a low profile. To go incognito I take them off."
--Bono

 

[Schmeg]

(I have a whole Word document if U2 quotes I love...a lot of them are already up! )

?So we said, ?What do you want on your fortieth birthday, Larry, what do you want?? He said, ?I don?t want to do, I don?t want to do anything fancy, I just wanna, I wanna play a gig in Rhode Island!??
-- Bono, October 31, 2001

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."
? Adam Clayton

"Never trust a man who tells you it's from the heart, never trust a man smoking a cigar, never trust a cowboy or a man who wears shades..."
? Bono

"Move your mind and your ass will follow."
-- Bono

"My real name is Johnny Carson, but I just didn't think that would get me on the show."
-- Edge in 1981, to late-night TV host Tom Snyder, when asked why he's called "The Edge?

 

[Schmeg]

"At the end of it all, I got this huge bill from the European Broadcasting Union, saying, You owe us hundreds of thousands of pounds for using our satellite. I never paid it. I'm probably still on the EBU's bad debts list. We were trying to tell the rest of the world what was going on in Sarajevo and the EBU was trying to make us pay for the privilege. I thought it was outrageous."
--Paul McGuinness

I think this was from the Spin interview in November:
Mullen: "I haven't listened to it in a while. It was in the middle of the longest tour that we've ever done and it's hard to remember what happened. I love the record. But I got confused there for a second, I'll admit, because...what's the other record we made?"
Edge: "Passengers!"
Mullen: "Passengers! They all started to merge."

Don't spend too much on the box and the wrapping paper. No matter how big the occasion, your loved ones just want what's inside."
--Bono

"We're not a punk band or ska band or whatever. We're just U2."
--Edge

"I'd like to give a message to the young people of America, and that is; we shall continue to abuse our position and fuck up the mainstream."
--Bono?s Grammy acceptance speech, 1994

BP: What's the most frightening thing that ever happened to you?
Bono: I found this pair of sunglasses, I picked them up, I put them on...

"It's your future. The only limits are the limits of your imagination. Dream up the kind of world you want to live in - dream out loud. At high volume! That's what we do for a living. Lucky Bastards!"
- Bono in concert, Dublin New Year's Day 1990

"The strangest thing has happened. I really missed my dog. That's never happened to me before. You know, on the 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, 'cos I don't have a dog."
-Bono, during ZooTV

"Fear is the opposite of faith."
--Bono

 

[Schmeg]

"Listen, I'll talk to Jesus. I'll talk to the lady at the check-out there at Kmart. I'll talk to anyone."
--Bono

"Grace overpowers karma. Grace rewards where rewards are not justified."
--Bono, 2000

"Actually it's hard to find four people this good-looking who are willing to write and record and perform together."
--Bono, 2001

GQ: How about those skin-tight chequerboard trousers you used to wear?
Bono: Unforgiveable. Forget The Unforgettable Fire, what about the Unforgivable Trousers?

"I don't know what will happen to Hanson when their voices break."
--Adam

?But in the spectrum of general human behavior, he's really kind of a goober.?
--Cathleen Falsani, Staff Reporter, Chicago Sun Times

Edge: "This week my favourite song is Running to Standstill"
Bono: "Are you on the smack, are you?"

"They don't know how hard it is starting at a blank page. You're living in Ireland, it's raining, it's always raining, that's where the melanchololy, the angst all comes from?.No, that's not true. You sit in a big house in the south of France, paid for by a large, extensive back catalogue, you look out the window and go 'It's a beautiful day!'"
--Bono, 5/22/03, Novello Awards (U2 wins for Outstanding Song Collection)

I love to paint. I don't think it's just the fumes, but it might be."
~Bono

 

[Schmeg]

You can't surrender to melancholy; that's too easy. Joy is a subject I go on and on about. It's one of the only emotions you can't contrive. It's impossible. Despair and anger are easier to convey. Joy is right next to happiness, which is not so interesting, and sentimentality. Great rock 'n' roll, the raw stuff, is pure joy. It's that sense of being alive, of being grateful for your pulse."
-Bono, 2001

My all-time favorite.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

"There's quite a party atmosphere whenever I announce we're going on tour. I don't take it personally."
-- Bono, 1993, about the Hewson family

LOL. .

Originally posted by Nikkievox
BP: Do you believe in flying saucers?
BONO: In my kitchen they're an everyday thing.
BP: Have you ever seen one?
BONO: She's a good shot.

Hehe.

I love the quotes dealing with his family. .

Angela

 

[wavesofregret]

I hadn't heard some of those before, this is very interesting!