Bono Quotes

I was 12 in '55 when rock and roll hit. It just completely transformed me.

If you actually go back and listen to my first album, there are some things on there that are kind of rock 'n' roll.

I think, actually, that rock and roll is a misconception. It should no longer be a term for music.

The genius of rock music is that it matched the cultural hysteria around it.

The Rolling Stones are violence. Their music penetrates the raw nerve endings of their listeners and finds its way into the groove marked 'release of frustration.'

Rock and roll is here to stay.

I know I'm not Freddie Mercury or Ann Wilson, and that's okay. You don't have to be a great singer to sing rock and roll. That's not what it's about.

Elvis was the only man from Northeast Mississippi who could shake his hips and still be loved by rednecks, cops, and hippies.

These days, rock 'n' roll is much more about rock than about roll. I don't do rock. But I'm interested in that roll part, because that's the funny little bit that makes it hip.

Rock and roll is the hamburger that ate the world.

From one generation to the next, The Beatles will remain the most important rock band of all time.

When you think about rock at its origin, and you think of the Beatles and millions of kids screaming as loud as they can and running as fast as they can towards the Beatles, there's no one who is that kind of lightning rod, who commands that kind of power and has that kind of creative magma.

I think K-Pop is a type of expression.

I always felt rock and roll was very, very wholesome music.

Rock and roll and swing never quite mixed. Rock and roll came in and just blew everything out of the water. Big bands were dead.

Classical music is for listening but rock and roll is to have fun with.

I used to be just a total jazz freak. People used to say, 'Where's the melody? Is there a melody in there anywhere?' Now I let the music follow the song.

Obviously, any living musician born after 1960 has been touched by rock and roll. It's the music of our time, and it's 'in the air,' as Steve Reich would say. My experience of it is just really direct because I'm actually playing in a collaborative band.

What I do is a bit broader in scope than a heavy metal band like Iron Maiden, Motorhead, ACDC and so on.

I think there are certain genres of music where people are allowed to go on, but there is something about rock and roll, I guess because it originally started out to be a teenage rebellion.

Rock 'n' roll is a crazy world, and it's how things work out you can't predict.

Our first two records are a lot quieter and more studio-based. We kind of had this feeling like we wanted to make a more quote-unquote 'rock' record. Then Patrick joined and really brought a new Herculean power to the band.

I did alternative rock before. That's why my style is the way it is now.

As the years go by, I realize how unique a style rock music is and how delicate you have to be with it sometimes; otherwise, you turn it into pop music or progressive rock or something else.

The Beatles are the classical music of rock n' roll. And rock n' roll is far more widespread than classical will ever be.