Singer-songwriters from Ireland

"When we were growing up, the 45 single was the heart of rock-and-roll and in many regards still is. It's the hardest thing to pull off. The surest sign that a band is growing stale and running out of creative ideas is when it turns to prog. And I well remember the 1970s when prog almost destroyed rock music. It's the mold growing on a congealed band on its last legs. Indeed, it still lurks among us in new, insidious forms like indie. The few times U2 has attempted prog, we've tempered it with good songwriting."

"Rock n roll stops the traffic"

"It is fair to say that we overreacted a bit. … Its not really worth defending my action, I did it in the spirit of the concert, and I thought I did it in the spirit of the artist's work, and he agreed — but, in fact he didn't own his work anymore, as most artists are prone to , he'd sold it, and the City of San Francisco owned it, and they didn't like what I did at all. … Its a really wild thing, you know, you're in Rock n Roll band — you know, I happen to sell millions of records — people therefore think that makes you a responsible citizen — this is not true. … I think this is one of the more mild actions of tour-madness. … It's the music that is magical with U2. … I don't mind being arrested for putting on a free concert, but I don't want to be arrested for being a vandal. I am a vandal and I do regret what I did. I really do regret it. It was dumb."

"What a city, what a night, what a crowd, what a bomb, what a mistake, what a wanker you have for a President."

"It's an amazing thing to think that ours is the first generation in history that really can end extreme poverty, the kind that means a child dies for lack of food in its belly. That should be seen as the most incredible, historic opportunity but instead it's become a millstone around our necks. We let our own pathetic excuses about how it's "difficult" justify our own inaction. Be honest. We have the science, the technology, and the wealth. What we don't have is the will, and that's not a reason that history will accept."

"We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies. But will we be that generation?"

"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."

"The thing about The Dubliners is — line'em up, the hardest rock'n'roll bands in the world, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Oasis, Nirvana, U2 — we're all a bunch of girls next to The Dubliners."

"All That You Can't Leave Behind and How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb are both really mad long titles. As I've just said them, I've just realised how ridiculous the titles are."

"Your president leads the world in the cause of freedom right now. ... The people in Ukraine are not just fighting for your own freedom, you are fighting for all of us who love freedom. … We pray that you will enjoy some of that peace soon."

"Well, here we are, the Irish in America. The Irish have been coming to America for years, going back to the great famine when the Irish were on the run from starvation and a British Government that couldn't care less. Right up to today, you know, there are more Irish immigrants here in America today than ever — some illegal, some legal. A lot of them are just running from high unemployment, some run from the Troubles in Northern Ireland, from the hatred of the H Blocks, torture. Others from wild acts of terrorism like we had today in a town called Enniskillen, where eleven people lie dead, and many more injured, on a Sunday Bloody Sunday."

"Let me tell you something. I've had enough of Irish Americans who haven't been back to their country in twenty or thirty years come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home; and the glory of the revolution, and the glory of dying for the revolution. Fuck the revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What's the glory of taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory of bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old-age-pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying, or crippled for life, or dead, under the rubble of the revolution that the majority of the people in my country don't want. No more! Sing No more! <!-- Variant transcription: Now let me tell you something, I've had enough of Irish Americans who haven't been back to their country, in 20 or 30 odd years, come up to me and talk about the Resistance, the Revolution back home, and the glory of the Revolution, and the glory of dying for the Revolution. Fuck the Revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the Revolution. What's the glory, in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory, in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old age pensioners, the medals taken out and polished up for the day, where's the glory in that? To leave them dying, or crippled for life, or dead, under the rubble of the Revolution — that the majority of the people in my country, don't want! Say "no more!" No more! No more! Wipe your tears away!"

""We used to say, 'They have everything, but it.' We had nothing, but it"."

"I am saying we are great. I'm not saying I'm great. There's a difference..."

"Ireland has a very different attitude to success than a lot of places, certainly than over here in the United States. In the United States, you look at the guy that lives in the mansion on the hill, and you think, you know, one day, if I work really hard, I could live in that mansion. In Ireland, people look up at the guy in the mansion on the hill and go, one day, I'm going to get that bastard. It's a different mind-set."

"Who in Ireland could have too much respect for organized religion? We've seen it tear our country in two. My mother was a Protestant. My father was a Catholic. And I learned that religion is often the enemy of God, actually."

"religion is the artifice, you know, the building, after God has left it sometimes, like Elvis has left the building. 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."

"This moment in time will be remembered for three things: the war against terror, sure; the Internet, probably; and how we let an entire continent, Africa, burst into flames and stood around with water in cans."

"Great ideas and great melodies have a lot in common"

"It's much harder to be relevant than it is to be successful"

"I've never left Ireland, really, you know you come here, come to America, I mean for Irish people America is kind of a promise land" … "It's the milk and honey ya know and we've always had this feeling for this country and the country I think has a feeling for our band"

"My name is Bono and I am a rock star."

"Don't get me too excited because I use four letter words when I get excited. I'd just like to say to the parents, your children are safe, your country is safe, the FCC has taught me a lesson and the only four letter word I'm going to use today is P-E-N-N. Come to think of it 'Bono' is a four-letter word. The whole business of obscenity — I don't think there's anything certainly more unseemly than the sight of a rock star in academic robes. It's a bit like when people put their King Charles spaniels in little tartan sweats and hats. It's not natural, and it doesn't make the dog any smarter."

"I have to come clean; I've broken a lot of laws, and the ones I haven't I've certainly thought about. I have sinned in thought, word, and deed. God forgive me. Actually God forgave me, but why would you? I'm here getting a doctorate, getting respectable, getting in the good graces of the powers that be, I hope it sends you students a powerful message: Crime does pay."

"So I humbly accept the honor, keeping in mind the words of a British playwright, John Mortimer it was, "No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense and relatively clean fingernails." Well at best I've got one of the two of those."

"I didn't expect change to come so slow, so agonizingly slow. I didn't realize that the biggest obstacle to political and social progress wasn't the Free Masons, or the Establishment, or the boot heel of whatever you consider 'the Man' to be, it was something much more subtle. As the Provost just referred to, a combination of our own indifference and the Kafkaesque labyrinth of 'no's you encounter as people vanish down the corridors of bureaucracy."

"There's a truly great Irish poet. His name is Brendan Kennelly, and he has this epic poem called the Book of Judas, and there's a line in that poem that never leaves my mind, it says: "If you want to serve the age, betray it." What does that mean, to betray the age? Well to me betraying the age means exposing its conceits, it's foibles; it's phony moral certitudes. It means telling the secrets of the age and facing harsher truths."

"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."

"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."

"What are the ideas right now worth betraying? What are the lies we tell ourselves now?"

"Africa makes a mockery of what we say, at least what I say, about equality and questions our pieties and our commitments because there's no way to look at what's happening over there and it's effect on all of us and conclude that we actually consider Africans as our equals before God. There is no chance."

"We used to wake up in the morning and the mist would be lifting we'd see thousands and thousands of people who'd been walking all night to our food station were we were working. One man — I was standing outside talking to the translator — had this beautiful boy and he was saying to me in Amharic, I think it was, I said I can't understand what he's saying, and this nurse who spoke English and Amharic said to me, he's saying will you take his son. He's saying please take his son, he would be a great son for you. I was looking puzzled and he said, "You must take my son because if you don't take my son, my son will surely die. If you take him he will go back to Ireland and get an education." Probably like the ones we're talking about today. I had to say no, that was the rules there and I walked away from that man, I've never really walked away from it. But I think about that boy and that man and that's when I started this journey that's brought me here into this stadium. Because at that moment I became the worst scourge on God's green earth, a rock star with a cause. Christ! Except it isn't the cause. Seven thousand Africans dying every day of preventable, treatable disease like AIDS? That's not a cause, that's an emergency."

"20 years on I'm not that interested in charity. I'm interested in justice. There's a difference. Africa needs justice as much as it needs charity. Equality for Africa is a big idea. It's a big expensive idea."

"The scale of the suffering and the scope of the commitment they often numb us into a kind of indifference. Wishing for the end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa is like wishing that gravity didn't make things so damn heavy. We can wish it, but what the hell can we do about it? Well, more than we think. We can't fix every problem — corruption, natural calamities are part of the picture here — but the ones we can we must. The debt burden, as I say, unfair trade, as I say, sharing our knowledge, the intellectual copyright for lifesaving drugs in a crisis, we can do that. And because we can, we must. Because we can, we must. Amen."

"This is the straight truth, the righteous truth. It's not a theory, it's a fact. The fact is that this generation — yours, my generation — that can look at the poverty, we're the first generation that can look at poverty and disease, look across the ocean to Africa and say with a straight face, we can be the first to end this sort of stupid extreme poverty, where in the world of plenty, a child can die for lack of food in it's belly. We can be the first generation. It might take a while, but we can be that generation that says no to stupid poverty. It's a fact, the economists confirm it. It's an expensive fact but, cheaper than say the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from communism and fascism. And cheaper I would argue than fighting wave after wave of terrorism's new recruits."

"It's a fact. So why aren't we pumping our fists in the air and cheering about it? Well probably because when we admit we can do something about it, we've got to do something about it. For the first time in history we have the know how, we have the cash, we have the lifesaving drugs, but do we have the will?"

"Yesterday, here in Philadelphia, at the Liberty Bell, I met a lot of Americans who do have the will. From arch-religious conservatives to young secular radicals, I just felt an incredible overpowering sense that this was possible. We're calling it the ONE campaign, to put an end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa. They believe we can do it, so do I."

"I really, really do believe it. I just want you to know, I think this is obvious, but I'm not really going in for the warm fuzzy feeling thing, I'm not a hippy, I do not have flowers in my hair, I come from punk rock, The Clash wore army boots not Birkenstocks. I believe America can do this! I believe that this generation can do this. In fact I want to hear an argument about why we shouldn't."

"I know idealism is not playing on the radio right now, you don't see it on TV, irony is on heavy rotation, the knowingness, the smirk, the tired joke. I've tried them all out but I'll tell you this, outside this campus — and even inside it — idealism is under siege beset by materialism, narcissism and all the other isms of indifference. Baggism, Shaggism. Raggism. Notism, graduationism, chismism, I don't know. Where's John Lennon when you need him?"

"It's not everywhere in fashion these days, Americanism. Not very big in Europe, truth be told. No less on Ivy League college campuses. But it all depends on your definition of Americanism. Me, I'm in love with this country called America. I'm a huge fan of America, I'm one of those annoying fans, you know the ones that read the CD notes and follow you into bathrooms and ask you all kinds of annoying questions about why you didn't live up to that... I'm that kind of fan. I read the Declaration of Independence and I've read the Constitution of the United States, and they are some liner notes, dude. As I said yesterday I made my pilgrimage to Independence Hall, and I love America because America is not just a country, it's an idea."

"America is an idea, but it's an idea that brings with it some baggage, like power brings responsibility. It's an idea that brings with it equality, but equality even though it's the highest calling, is the hardest to reach. The idea that anything is possible, that's one of the reasons why I'm a fan of America. It's like hey, look there's the moon up there, lets take a walk on it, bring back a piece of it. That's the kind of America that I'm a fan of."

"When the potatoes ran out, millions of Irish men, women and children packed their bags got on a boat and showed up right here. And we're still doing it. We're not even starving anymore, loads of potatoes. In fact if there's any Irish out there, I've breaking news from Dublin, the potato famine is over you can come home now. But why are we still showing up? Because we love the idea of America. We love the crackle and the hustle, we love the spirit that gives the finger to fate, the spirit that says there's no hurdle we can't clear and no problem we can't fix."

"Every era has its defining struggle and the fate of Africa is one of ours. It's not the only one, but in the history books it's easily going to make the top five, what we did or what we did not do. It's a proving ground, as I said earlier, for the idea of equality. But whether it's this or something else, I hope you'll pick a fight and get in it. Get your boots dirty, get rough, steel your courage with a final drink there at Smoky Joe's, one last primal scream and go."

"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."

"You know I used to think the future was solid or fixed, something you inherited like an old building that you move into when the previous generation moves out or gets chased out. But it's not. The future is not fixed, it's fluid."

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

"Remember what John Adams said about Ben Franklin, "He does not hesitate at our boldest Measures but rather seems to think us too irresolute." Well, this is the time for bold measures."

"I'm the Imelda Marcos of sunglasses.... Very sensitive eyes to light. If somebody takes my photograph, I will see the flash for the rest of the day. My right eye swells up. I've a blockage there, so that my eyes go red a lot. So it's part vanity, it's part privacy and part sensitivity."

"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."

"We could defend ourselves. But even though some of us became pretty good at violence ourselves, others didn't. They got the shit kicked out of 'em. I thought that was kind of normal. I can remember incredible street battles. I remember one madster with an iron bar, just trying to bring it down on my skull as hard as he possibly could, and holding up a dustbin lid, which saved my life. Teenage kids have no sense of mortality — yours or theirs."

"You know that Johnny Cash song "A Boy Named Sue" where he gives the kid a girl's name, and the kid is beaten up at every stage in his life by macho guys, but in the end he becomes the toughest man. … By not encouraging me to be a musician, even though that's all he ever wanted to be, he's made me one. By telling me never to have big dreams or else, that to dream is to be disappointed, he made me have big dreams. By telling me that the band would only last five minutes or ten minutes — we're still here."

"I really remember John Lennon's Imagine. I guess I'm twelve; that's one of my first albums. That really set fire to me. It was like he was whispering in your ear — his ideas of what's possible. Different ways of seeing the world."

"I was in my room listening on headphones on a tape recorder. It's very intimate. It's like talking to somebody on the phone, like talking to John Lennon on the phone. I'm not exaggerating to say that. This music changed the shape of the room. It changed the shape of the world outside the room; the way you looked out the window and what you were looking at. I remember John singing "Oh My Love." It's like a little hymn. It's certainly a prayer of some kind — even if he was an atheist. "Oh, my love/For the first time in my life/My eyes can see/I see the wind/Oh, I see the trees/Everything is clear in our world." For me it was like he was talking about the veil lifting off, the scales falling from the eyes. Seeing out the window with a new clarity that love brings you. I remember that feeling. Yoko came up to me when I was in my twenties, and she put her hand on me and she said, "You are John's son." What an amazing compliment!"

"What's interesting is, in the months leading up to this, I was probably at the lowest ebb in my life. I was feeling just teenage angst. I didn't know if I wanted to continue living — that kind of despair. I was praying to a God I didn't know was listening."

"We actually aren't able to play other people's songs. The one Stones song we tried to play was "Jumpin' Jack Flash." It was really bad. So we started writing our own — it was easier."

"Bowie was much more responsible for the aesthetic of punk rock than he's been given credit for, like, in fact, most interesting things in the Seventies and Eighties."

"When John Lennon sings, "Oh, my love/For the first time in my life/My eyes are wide open" — these songs have an intimacy for me that's not just between people, I realize now, not just sexual intimacy. A spiritual intimacy."

"The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt."

"So now — cut to 1980. Irish rock group, who've been through the fire of a certain kind of revival, a Christian-type revival, go to America. Turn on the TV the night you arrive, and there's all these people talking from the Scriptures. But they're quite obviously raving lunatics. Suddenly you go, what's this? And you change the channel. There's another one. You change the channel, and there's another secondhand-car salesman. You think, oh, my God. But their words sound so similar . . . to the words out of our mouths. So what happens? You learn to shut up. You say, whoa, what's this going on? You go oddly still and quiet. If you talk like this around here, people will think you're one of those. And you realize that these are the traders — as in t-r-a-d-e-r-s — in the temple."

"If I could put it simply, I would say that I believe there's a force of love and logic in the world, a force of love and logic behind the universe. And I believe in the poetic genius of a creator who would choose to express such unfathomable power as a child born in "straw poverty"; i.e., the story of Christ makes sense to me. … As an artist, I see the poetry of it. It's so brilliant. That this scale of creation, and the unfathomable universe, should describe itself in such vulnerability, as a child. That is mind-blowing to me. I guess that would make me a Christian. Although I don't use the label, because it is so very hard to live up to. I feel like I'm the worst example of it, so I just kinda keep my mouth shut. … I try to take time out of every day, in prayer and meditation. I feel as at home in a Catholic cathedral as in a revival tent. I also have enormous respect for my friends who are atheists, most of whom are, and the courage it takes not to believe."

"These are hard subjects to talk about because you can sound like such a dickhead. I'm the sort of character who's got to have an anchor. I want to be around immovable objects. I want to build my house on a rock, because even if the waters are not high around the house, I'm going to bring back a storm. I have that in me. So it's sort of underpinning for me."

"I'm wary of faith outside of actions. I'm wary of religiosity that ignores the wider world. In 2001, only seven percent of evangelicals polled felt it incumbent upon themselves to respond to the AIDS emergency. This appalled me. I asked for meetings with as many church leaders as would have them with me. I used my background in the Scriptures to speak to them about the so-called leprosy of our age and how I felt Christ would respond to it. And they had better get to it quickly, or they would be very much on the other side of what God was doing in the world. Amazingly, they did respond. I couldn't believe it. It almost ruined it for me — 'cause I love giving out about the church and Christianity. But they actually came through: Jesse Helms, you know, publicly repents for the way he thinks about AIDS. I've started to see this community as a real resource in America. I have described them as "narrow-minded idealists." If you can widen the aperture of that idealism, these people want to change the world. They want their lives to have meaning."

"If you're wondering what I'm doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well, so am I. I'm certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is leather. It's certainly not because I'm a rock star. Which leaves one possible explanation: I'm here because I've got a messianic complex. Yes, it's true. And for anyone who knows me, it's hardly a revelation."

"I'm the first to admit that there's something unnatural... something unseemly... about rock stars mounting the pulpit and preaching at presidents, and then disappearing to their villas in the South of France. Talk about a fish out of water. It was weird enough when Jesse Helms showed up at a U2 concert... but this is really weird, isn't it?"

"I will try to keep my homily brief. But be warned — I'm Irish."

"I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here — Muslims, Jews, Christians — all are searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God. I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me here, too. Yes, it's odd, having a rock star here — but maybe it's odder for me than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was... well, a little blurry, and hard to see."

"One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land... and in this country, seeing God's second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash... in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment... I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV. Even though I was a believer. Perhaps because I was a believer."

"It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he's met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he's a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn't done much... yet. He hasn't spoken in public before... When he does, his first words are from Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," he says, "because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord's favour, the year of Jubilee. [Luke 4:18] What he was really talking about was an era of grace — and we're still in it."

"Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives. Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone. I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill... I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff... maybe, maybe not... But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house... God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives... God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war... God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them."

"I close this morning on … very... thin... ice. This is a dangerous idea I've put on the table: my God vs. your God, their God vs. our God... vs. no God. It is very easy, in these times, to see religion as a force for division rather than unity. And this is a town — Washington — that knows something of division. But the reason I am here, and the reason I keep coming back to Washington, is because this is a town that is proving it can come together on behalf of what the Scriptures call the least of these. This is not a Republican idea. It is not a Democratic idea. It is not even, with all due respect, an American idea. Nor it is unique to any one faith. "Do to others as you would have them do to you." [Luke 6:30] Jesus says that. "Righteousness is this: that one should... give away wealth out of love for Him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives." The Koran says that. [2.177] Thus sayeth the Lord: "Bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth, then your Lord will be your rear guard." The Jewish scripture says that. Isaiah 58 again."

"A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it... I have a family, please look after them... I have this crazy idea... And this wise man said: stop. He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Get involved in what God is doing — because it's already blessed."

"These goals — clean water for all; school for every child; medicine for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless poverty — these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium Development goals, which this country supports. And they are more than that. They are the Beatitudes for a Globalised World."

"There is a continent — Africa — being consumed by flames. 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 to — to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do."

"These last two albums mix up the personal and the political so that you don't know which one you're talking to. That's a kind of magic trick, and realizing that of course all the problems that we find in the exterior world are just manifestations of what we, you know, what we hold inside of us, in our interior worlds. The biggest fucker, the biggest asshole, the biggest, the most sexist we can be, the most selfish, mean, cunning, all those characters you are going to see them in the mirror. And that is where the job of transformation has to start first. Is that not what experience tells us?"

"I'm less unsure about taking political risks or social risks. When I became an activist, people were like, "Really?" But they eventually accepted that. Then I started to be interested in commerce and the machinery of what got people out of poverty and into prosperity. And then a few people said, "You can't really go there, can you?" I said, "But if you are an artist, you must go there." You and I have had the conversation over the years: What can the artist do? What is the artist not allowed to do, and are there boundaries? Now, I would say to my younger self: "Experiment more and don't let people box you in. There is nothing you can't put on your canvas if it is part of your life.""

"I met this poet named Brendan Kennelly. I have known him for years; he is an unbelievable poet. And he said, “Bono, if you want to get to the place where the writing lives, imagine you’re dead.” There is no ego, there is no vanity, no worrying about who you will offend. That is great advice."

"[On the persecutions of Rohingya in Myanmar, and Aung San Suu Kyi‎'s lack of response to them] That is very hard, and I'm – I feel kind of nauseous about that. I have genuinely felt ill, because I can't quite believe what the evidence all points to. But there is ethnic cleansing. It really is happening, and she has to step down because she knows it's happening. I am sure she has many great reasons in her head why she is not stepping down. Maybe it's that she doesn't want to lose the country back to the military. But she already has, if the pictures are what we go by, anyway. The human rights that are being torched, the lives that are being burned out in Rakhine State are more important than a unity without them. … She should, at the very least, be speaking out more. And if people don't listen, then resign. This is all just really troubling. I am still confounded by it, actually. I am still confounded by it, actually. … Is it that we project onto people who we want them to be? We find somebody we like, and we tell ourselves that a person exists that is better than us. More able than us. A truer moral compass than us. We imbue them with all these qualities. We do that with people. I think I have had it done to me. People have their version of you, they project what they want to see on you. Maybe she was always a politician. She was not a saint. She was not some sort of savior. Maybe we were always wrong, and we just have to accept we were wrong. Or maybe something terrible has happened to her that we just don't know."

"You have made people listen. You have made people care, and you have taught us that whether we are poor or prosperous, we have only one world to share. You have taught young people that they do have the power to change the world."

"He's a poet. He's a philosopher. And last night, I think I saw him walking on water."

"I never believed that U2 wanted to save the whales. I don't believe that The Beastie Boys are ready to lay it down for Tibet."

"I think that politicians are attracted at first by the celebrity but once they meet him, they find that he is outstandingly capable."

"He's a strange sort of entity, this euphoric rock star with the chin stubble and the tinted glasses — a new and heretofore undescribed planet in an emerging galaxy filled with transnational, multinational and subnational bodies. He's a kind of one-man state who fills his treasury with the global currency of fame. He is also, of course, an emanation of the celebrity culture. But it is Bono's willingness to invest his fame, and to do so with a steady sense of purpose and a tolerance for detail, that has made him the most politically effective figure in the recent history of popular culture."

"Bono gives us a vision of how tomorrow can be better than today. He appeals to something greater than ourselves. He tells the story of his life and struggles in terms everyone can understand. He speaks about faith in a way that even a nonbeliever can embrace."

"For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bono is Time's Person of the Year."

"I think they find it — they find me quite confusing, because — they know the music, but they don't know anything about me ... because I keep a very private lifestyle so they end up ... making up stories as such. But I don't really concern myself too much about them."

"On the project The Celts I was asked to ... to write a song. And, at the time I was ... arranging with Nicky, and writing the music and performing ... so, no desire whatsoever to write lyrics!... But Roma was actually writing poetry at the time, and she was involved, with listening in the studio ... being the audience in the studio ... so she was involved with the project. So, it was very obvious that she would write the lyrics."

"There is no set sort of rules, or no set sort of formula to the way we work in the studio ... so it's difficult to know ... what we'll move on to next. We don't like to say, "Never, no we'd never do this" ... But, we ... like the setup as far as there's only three people in the studio ... because the work is very personal, very intimate, very emotional ... and that is very important to the album."

"I get very inspired by traveling, by being home in Donegal ... all those wonderful moments I'll take with me to the studio. And they, ah, then become at some stage, a melody. That emotion that I loved at some stage will evolve as a melody."

"For me, I've derived from religion ... what... I enjoy ... and it's to go to church, but usually ... when there's nobody else there. I just love that moment, ah, to just sit there. It's very peaceful, very calm, and very therapeutic, and it's ... wonderful."

"A lot of people tend to think that because I need all this time on my own in the studio, that I need time on my own, period. And that's not really true."

"I like to stay up-to-date with what's happening musically ... I wish people wouldn't think that such things were going to shock me. 'Wow! Does Enya really watch TV?'"

"Regardless of how I live my life, there are people who develop fixations that are not healthy. It could be a visual thing, or it could be the music that they are drawn to. These people need help."

"I do promotion when it is necessary ... But I always want to get back to the music. The personal appearances and red carpet events are very glitzy, but it's a bit false."

"I'm not one for walking the beaches humming a melody ... I love the discipline of sitting in the studio, writing and listening. That is my domain."

"They are as much "Enya" as I am."

"There is no formula to it because writing every song, for me, is a little journey. The first note has to lift you and make you go, 'What's this?' You play C, but why is it that one day it leads to G and it didn't yesterday? I don't know. It's everything. It's the walk you take in the morning, it's the night before, the meeting with people, landscapes, the chats, all of that evolves in some way into melody, but I'm not sure how it's going to happen. I'm dealing with the unknown all the time and that is exciting."

"I suppose there's a certain way I like the music to be performed, and I feel I can capture it better than anyone else. I know every note in every song, the whole history of it, even parts that were there and are gone."

"The word workaholic is so severe, but I do focus a lot on my work ... I think a lot about what I'm doing in all aspects of my life, what am I trying to achieve here, am I happy with this? Music is like a mirror in front of you. You're exposing everything, but surely that's better than suppressing. ... You have to dig deep and that can be hard for anybody, no matter what profession. I feel that I need to actually push myself to the limit to feel happy with the end result."

"Many childless single woman would be at my age already in panic. Also I have been thinking for the last 3 years, why I have been sacrificing so much time for my work. But, I have ended up to a thought that I would never change a single day out of my life. It would be lovely to get a family one day, but my life doesn't end even if that would not happen."

"I and Nicky have got a lot of disagreements, but they are nearly always associated to music. Because we both are very strong-willing persons, we might sit in the opposite corners in the studio argueing about things. One does never know beforehand, whose idea works the best way."

"Amarantine is an ancient word, which means eternity. The poets describe an undying flower with that word, and I fell in love with that idea ... For me that word suited rhythmically to the refrain of the piece. A-ma-ran-ti-ne. In our website the fans tried to guess something super-romantic to be the album's name, but this word was obviously never guessed by anyone."

"When entering the studio, I don't know what will happen. I do a so-called trip into myself: I sit down at the piano and the melody might start to evolve from my playing or then I might start to sing it. At that stage I do not yet have clear ideas about what kind of emotions I would like to express. Until I play the completed piece to Roma and Nicky and when I observe their reactions, the music gets its meaning..."

"For me this career and that I am privileged to do a job I love to do, means really, really much. I would never change any moment from my life. When making music I sink myself into the process as deeply as I can and forget all of the success."

"I could have been more famous if I did all the glitzy things, but celebrity always seemed so unnecessary ... Fame and success are very different things, anyway. The music sold itself before anybody knew who I was, so I felt I had a choice. I told the record company I didn't feel the need to be out there at red-carpet events. I wanted a career. But I wanted to keep myself intact as a person."

"I started writing instrumentals but Roma pointed out they were very visual, so she started writing lyrics .. and Nicky had this idea of creating a wall of sound and started multi-tracking my voice."

"I didn't expect such a huge reaction, but I knew I was doing something different to everything else that was happening at the time ... People feel a very personal connection with the music."

"There might be one little thing that makes all the difference, one note or one word. The fine-tuning is all important, and you've got to stay there until you get it right ... That's why it can take years."

"I am really a very shy person ... If I appear, it is because of the music, not because I want to be seen. I'm not a recluse. I like to go out, but I don't like the glitziness that goes with it."

"I'm very happy as I am. I realise that I made sacrifices early in my career and that it was hard on my relationships because, when I am working, I am very focused and it isn't easy, when you have been in the studio all day, to say to someone, 'I'll meet up with you later on.' I learned that it was necessary to be dedicated and put work first. But, at the same time, it was a wonderful feeling to be successful at doing something I loved."

"When I left school, I had a list of priorities headed by 'marriage' and 'children'. That is how, I suppose, as a woman, you are brought up to think. At the same time, as I grew older, I told myself that if it happens, it happens, and that will be fine, but if it doesn't, that will be fine, too."

"I loved to talk about music to Nicky ... His influence came from people like The Beatles and The Beach Boys, and he had these ideas about layering vocals, painting landscapes with music. Roma knew about Irish mythology, told stories, wrote poetry and had this special feeling for lyrics. My grounding came from the classics."

"Sitting and writing music on your own makes you think a lot about your life. Who are you? Would you change anything about yourself? This is where it comes from. It is like having a mirror held up in front of you, looking into yourself and asking these questions."

"What I was looking for was a romantic athmosphere that I could feel at home with. I think I've achieved that. I love my home. I have friends round. I take care to live in it, not to work in it."

"I'm sometimes asked what are the pluses and minuses of celebrity ... and, for me, the biggest plus is being successful at something that I love to do. The minuses, unfortunately, include having to live with security and the knowledge that you may be stalked. ... I do like people ... I have lots of friends, but I can only be who I am."

"I live in Victorian Gothic castle in Killiney that I was so bold as to rename Manderley, because Daphne du Maurier 's Rebecca is one of my favourite books. ... People have this image of me as an ethereal Lady of Shalott, floating across the battlements, but it's a very small castle as castles go — with no big ballrooms... I don't write my music in my home, only in the studio; I want as normal life as possible at home, with dinner parties and entertaining."

"The success of Watermark surprised me. I never thought of music as something commercial; it was something very personal to me... The writing of a melody is an emotional moment; success doesn't make it easy."

"I felt as if we were two families: the older ones, who were away touring when I was at school and the younger ones. I was closer to my two younger sisters because of the nearness of our ages, but I feel I would have to have permission to say their names — they're very private that way."

"I joined my family's band, Clannad , as a teenager in 1980 to sing harmonies and play keyboards, but it wasn't musically challenging for me; I felt like an outsider. ... My split from Clannad two years later caused a conflict of loyalty for a time, because I went off with their manager Nicky Ryan, who had asked me to join Clannad in the first place."

"Enya is more than just me. It's also Nicky, who arranges my melodies, and his wife Roma, who writes the lyrics. They believed in my music from day one"

"I have never come close to being married or engaged. I was with someone eight years ago when I questioned whether I wanted the pressure of being married or having children. I always felt that if pregnancy was to happen, it would happen; if it didn't, it didn't. ... I have security, I don't need a man in my life. I don't have pets, I have two guard dogs; and I don't do my own shopping; it's a security thing....The downside of success is stalkers. I have had death threats from people with fixations who need help."

"Saol na saol, tús go deireadh. Tá muid beo go deo."

"My light shall be the moon And my path, the ocean. My guide, the morning star As I sail home to you."

"When the evening falls and the daylight is fading, From within me calls — could it be I am sleeping? For a moment I stray, then it holds me completely. Close to home, I cannot say."

"The bright days of my youth They were full of hope The great journey that was before me then Was what was destined to be, bye bye. Now I'm sorrowful, The day is long past. Alas and woe, oh."

"How far to go I cannot say. How many more Will journey this way?"

"All days come from one day that much you must know, you cannot change what's over but only where you go."

"Each heart is a pilgrim, each one wants to know the reason why the winds die and where the stories go."

"Out of night has come the day Out of night, our small earth. Our words drift away. Our words journey to find those who will listen."

"We call out into the distance... Less than a pearl in a sea of stars, we are a lost island in the shadows."

"You know when you give your love away it opens your heart, everything is new. And you know time will always find a way to let your heart believe it's true."

"You know love is everything you say; a whisper, a word, promises you give. You feel it in the heartbeat of the day. You know this is the way love is."

"Amarantine... Love is."

"You know love may sometimes make you cry, so let the tears go, they will flow away, for you know love will always let you fly — how far a heart can fly away!"

"You know when love's shining in your eyes it may be the stars fallen from above. And you know love is with you when you rise, for night and day belong to love."

"Listen to the rain Here it comes again Hear it in the rain Feel the touch of tears that fall — they won't fall forever In the way the day will flow all things come, all things go."

"Late at night I drift away - I can hear you calling, and my name is in the rain, leaves on trees whispering, deep blue sea's mysteries."

"Where are you this moment? only in my dreams. You're missing, but you're always a heartbeat from me."

"Winter lies before me now you're so far away. In the darkness of my dreaming the light of you will stay"

"If I could be close beside you If I could be where you are if I could reach out and touch you and bring you back home Is there a way I can find you Is there a sign I should know Is there a road I could follow to bring you back home to me"

"Our words go beyond the moon. Our words go into the shadows. The river sings the endlessness. We write of our journey through night. We write in our aloneness. We want to know the shape of eternity. Who knows the way it is? Who knows what time will not tell us?"

"Mountains, solitude and the moon until the journey's end? The river holds the lost road of the sky; the shape of eternity?"

"Where is the beginning? Where is the end? Why did we fall into days? Why are we calling out into the endlessness? Who knows the way it is? Who knows what time will not tell us?"

"Long, long journey through the darkness, long, long way to go; but what are miles across the ocean to the heart that's coming home?"

"The poignancy of things A purple flower The blossoms of spring And the light snow of winter How they fall"

"Summer. When the day is over there's a heart a little colder; someone said goodbye, but you don't know why. Somewhere there is someone keeping all the tears they have been weeping, someone said goodbye, but you don't know why."

"Always looking for a meaning, all the time you keep believing, but I don't know why you won't say goodbye. Even when the sun is shining you don't see the silver lining, but I don't know why you won't say goodbye."

"It's only now when words are said that break my heart in two, I wonder how you can endure all I've said, all I say to you."

"After all the words are said, after all the dreams we made; every one a precious one, every one a summer sun..."

"A moment lost, forever gone, can never be again, so know how much it means to me; all you said, all you gave, all your love to me."

"A million feathers falling down, a million stars that touch the ground, so many secrets to be found amid the falling snow."

"The silence of a winter's night brings memories I hold inside; remembering a blue moonlight upon the fallen snow."

"From the City of Constellations to the wanderer and a Place of Rains he journeys on... ...the City of hesitation and doubt the Island of the house the colour of the sea the Plain of Mementoes he journeys on to find his love... ...the Valley of lost time the City of End and Endlessness the Isle of Revenents he journeys on..."

"in silence through the night close to the City of Realisations; it is here one finds the way... ...Mount Orison the City of Days the Tree of the lost he journeys on... ...north of his love a road through a valley of darkness the islands that are not of this world he journeys on to find his love..."

"It is a long way through darkness to the way of the eremite the eremite sings of the world and of the journey of love, which is not lost in eternity..."

"Enya left school in 1979, and we had already been a nucleus, so it was probably difficult for her. She wanted to go off and do her own thing. Tensions were created because we never answered any of the questions. If you're going to answer questions, people aren't going to believe you anyway. The proof of the pudding is that Enya is my sister, and I love her dearly, and we get on really, really well."

"She does have a life. She'd kill me if I talked about it, so I'm not going to talk about it. There's a difference between being a private person and a recluse. All this blushed and flushed stuff about her being a recluse put it to bed, for God's sake."

"Enya never writes a bad melody. That's first and foremost her secret. As she goes along, she'll start changing the dynamics, pushing here and there so that not everything is perfectly in unison. It adds a texture you can acquire only from having different voices. The variations lead to interesting quirks. It's an integral part of the Enya sound."

"Enya knew nothing about recording, about production or arrangements. Originally, we were stock-piling music and just letting her get on with it. There was no name on the music she was writing. All I knew was that hard work succeeded."

"I heard the soundtrack to The Celts TV programme, which Enya had done, and I thought "what's this magical music?", and it was such an antidote to the, sort of, the day's work, that every night I went home and played the soundtrack from The Celts. And then I met her in Ireland and she was telling me how she was signing to another record company, I went "no, no, no, no, you can't do this, you must sign with us." And I did it really just as a self-indulgence, that I thought this was beautiful music and wanted to be associated with it, there wasn't really a kind of commercial edge to it at all."

"Sometimes the company is there to make money, sometimes it's there to make music. Enya was the latter. I would have been a genius if I knew this was going to sell millions of records. I just wanted to be involved with this music."

"Enya and her team record and we stay in touch until there is something for me to listen to. I then provide an outside view. She is a genius in the studio, comparable to somebody like Brian Wilson, but she and Nicky can be their own worst enemies at striving for personal best all the time. I guess that's the price of perfectionism."

"There's something about Celtic mythology which is deep in the soul, and I just think that somehow she has tapped right into it."

"You tend to behave yourself in her company. Make even a small joke about her songs and she gets angry. And she does have a peculiar effect on men. I've watched normally sane journalists waxing metaphysical when they meet her."

"Playing in a family band has many advantages, but it can often mean that when the going gets tough you take it out on each other with a liberty that only family can tolerate. I suppose it had always been difficult for Eithne. We loved what she brought to the band, but I know it was hard for her to infiltrate our years as a tightly knit nucleus. Musically, Ciaran and Pol had always been the creative force, and Noel, Padraig and myself had then worked our own expression around them. It was a good formula that worked well. Inevitably, when Eithne joined us full time, she found it hard. She hadn't been part of the original song-collecting days and consequently didn't share our enthusiasm for the old songs. I suppose she always felt little more than a "guest musician". As sisters we had always been close and talked about everything together, so I was sorry when band business caused a strain between us. One day, just after the tour, Eithne announced that she had decided to leave Clannad. She was going to pursue a solo career with Nicky Ryan as her manager. In the long term it turned out to be a good decision. I missed her, but I'm sure the apprenticeship with Clannad helped Eithne develop her own sound and afforded her strong contacts in the music business. She is talented and ambitious and, in the years that followed, the family was delighted to watch the success that came her way."

"Over the years I have learnt to be on my guard but, as any artist will testify, you are completely powerless if a writer has a certain agenda. There have been many damaging articles that have hurt my family deeply stories about our relationships, particularly between myself and Enya. We resolved in the early days not to talk about our private lives but, especially in Enya's case, this has often led to more intrigue and false speculation. For an artist, it is the unfortunate consequence of being in the public eye, but what makes me really angry is the way the family inevitably bears the suffering."

"Eithne had been working on her album and the single, 'Orinoco Flow', was released while we were in the studio. We were so excited for her. It was already at number eleven in the charts and we felt sure it was going to go up. We'd watched her on Top of the Pops the week before, so come Sunday evening we expectantly gathered in the house near the studio to listen to the Top Forty. Our youngest brother, Bartley, was working in London and he came over to be with us to hear the news. Number one! We were all shouting and screaming and hugging each other and you couldn't have heard the record playing above the din in the room. First we spoke to Eithne on the phone. More squealing. She was so happy and we knew that sharing the moment with us, even over the telephone, was very special. Then we rang our brother Leon who was over in Donegal. He'd been driving Mammy to church and they'd been frantically trying to get the radio station on the car radio so they could hear the result. The whole family were over the moon. That evening at dinner we had a bottle of champagne and toasted Eithne's success."

"On Christmas Day the traditional Brennan Christmas continued in full swing. It was wonderful that we could all be at home together. The girls set about preparing the meal while the boys rearranged the furniture so we could all sit around the table together. Eithne had just got a video camera and was skulking from room to room trying to catch everyone at their most embarrassing. It didn't take much to get us to act accordingly and the house was full of laughter and song."

"I carry on in my own narrow little tunnel and we have very different experiences of life even though we live together."

"I have this massive love for the whole culture of pop music … It has probably been the biggest relationship in my life. It's my fascination, my on-going passion. … I really, really love music. I'm affected by it and uplifted by it, and made to laugh and cry, and almost fall in love with the person who has made me feel so brilliant and communicated so profoundly to me."

"If this world is wearing thin And you're thinking of escape I'll go anywhere with you Just wrap me up in chains But if you try to go alone Don't think I'll understand (Stay) Stay with me"

"You'd better hope and pray That you make it safe back to your own world You'd better hope and pray That you'll wake one day in your own world Because when you sleep at night They don't hear your cries in your own world Only time will tell If you can break the spell back in your own world."

"It's time that glamour came back, everything has got a little bit beige in the last two years, I say bring back black!"

"Music bypasses the intellect, it makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you want to dance, makes you want to have sex."

"I've always tried not to take it too seriously — if you do, you dry up creatively, you turn into a product and it stymies you."

"Believe in yourself as ever, and your own tastes and ideas, and stay true to them, or you'll fuck your head up and end up hating what you do."

"We were written off from day one. Nobody believed in us but us. We kept having hits despite the record company, despite the press."

"I love digging out old records … Fashion goes round in circles."

"A song is communicating with people. Entertainment is a different area."

"I've always considered myself a failure: I feel I've never done anything wholly right. [...] Everybody will tell you, "Oh no, how can you say that, because ten thousand people clap you on a night?" But part of that is reflex action and part of it is because you're reasonably good. But if you're great, that's a different thing."

"I wouldn't call myself an actor or a singer for that matter, just a journeyman. [...] I feel I must have a talent somewhere for doing something but I'm still not terribly sure what it is. I suppose it's a talent for being myself."

"Ronnie is like the King of Ireland, and we are his subjects."

"Hardly a day goes by without me sticking on a Muddy Waters record."

"One of the things that was crucial for me I got from Rory Gallagher, which was the idea of, like, being a guitar player for life and living it."

"Rory's death really upset me. I heard about it just before we went on stage, and it put a damper on the evening. I can't say I knew him that well, but I remember meeting him in our offices once, and we spent an hour talking. He was such a nice guy and a great player."

"So these couple of kids come up, who's me and my mate, and say 'How do you get your sound Mr. Gallagher?' and he sits and tells us. So I owe Rory Gallagher my sound."

"Rory's death is a tragic loss of a great musician and a very good friend..."

"The man who got me back into the blues."

"An uncompromisingly serious musician."

"I'm a strong-minded woman, but I don't try to deny that I'm a female in any way."

"I’m very close to my mum. She has a strong faith that gives her this amazing sense of peace. I admire her; she's a very strong woman."

"My boyfriend—that I used to live with—was a painter and his friend was a sculptor and, like many people who go to Art College and get diplomas, they found it very difficult to be recognized outside of Limerick. They'd come to Dublin and put on exhibitions and get no support at all. Artists who live outside Dublin also find it harder to get financial assistance from establishments like the Arts Council. It's the same thing in music, in terms of support. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that Dublin has the media on its side and it pumps out this notion that Dublin is the centre of the universe, which it obviously isn't. It definitely never was for us."

"I always liked Doc Martens with really messed-up style, but at least I was thinking that my mind was more important than my body, anyway."

"When you're famous so young, become a millionaire overnight, people think you're going to crash and burn and be such a mess. I have my kids and Don."

"One of the things I always miss, is the pub culture You know, the atmosphere, the music, the craic, all the things you won't find anywhere else."

"I just always loved Yeats, him as a human. He was so passionate and just wrote what he felt."

"They weren't mainstream and beautiful and attractive, visually (the Smiths, the Cure and Depeche Mode). I thought they were different and when I was a teenager I liked the idea that what you told was more important than what you appeared."

"Another mother's breaking Heart is taking over When the violence causes silence We must be mistaken."

"It's the same old theme Since nineteen-sixteen In your head, in your head, they are fighting With their tanks, and their bombs And their bombs, and their guns In your head, in your head they are crying In your head, in your head Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie What's in your head, in your head Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie, oh"

"Oh my life is changing everyday In every possible way And oh my dreams It's never quite as it seems Never quite as it seems."

"And now I tell you openly You have my heart so don't hurt me You're what I couldn't find A totally amazing mind So understanding and so kind You're everything to me."

"And oh my dreams It's never quite as it seems 'Cause you're a dream to me Dream to me."

"This is just an ordinary day Wipe the insecurities away I can see that the darkness will erode Looking out the corner of my eye I can see that the sunshine will explode Far across the desert in the sky Beautiful girl Won't you be my inspiration? Beautiful girl Don't you throw your love around What in the world, what in the world Could ever come between us?"

"I'm knowing this could be our last event Jaweh, Jaweh, Jaweh I'm knowing I am your youngest descent I don't want to know your pain I don't want to play the game."

"I can't find a word to say to you I can't comprehend, I can't relate to you Plain to see your faith for me Take me higher angel fire Take me where I want to go Teach me things I need to know."

"Growing up in Ireland in the '90s, those songs were all over the radio, all of the time. We were not only proud that this quartet from Limerick were one of the biggest rock bands in the world, but that they were fronted by this badass, don't-give-a-fuck, non-conforming young woman that was a little bit intimidating, but also just so fucking... cool. [...] Who sang like her before? Who has been comparable to her since? In a world that has become increasingly difficult to uncover originality and uniqueness in music, her voice stood out like this weird, wonderful, otherworldly beacon. She was one of a kind, no doubt."

"The thing we remember the most about Dolores is the craic we had. She'd be sat on the bus ripping the piss out of you."

"When Dolores wrote a song, I'd generally have known what it was about. You knew the period it was written in and what had been going on in her life. We never once in the thirty years sat down and said, 'What's that about?' She hated being asked to explain her lyrics. It was very much, 'You decide what it's about'... What Dolores also had, was a very low boredom threshold. Two days into rehearsals, you'd look over and see that look on her face. She mightn't have said anything there and then but at seven in the evening you'd get a call from her asking, 'What did you think of today?' and before you could answer she’d go, 'It wasn’t rock enough.' She was always the metaller in the band."

"Fans were connected on such a personal level with Dolores—they’d hear her lyrics and apply them to what was going on in their own lives."

"Dolores is some of those people that, when you get into her inner circle, you see the spirit, the person that she was, and she was just so kind, so supportive... and in my career—in the long years that I've been in it—I have to say she's one of those people that would call me and I would come running, no matter what, and my wife knows that. We had a very strong connections in that. She represented everything that I inspired to be, in a beautiful way. We connected in a very strong way..."

"Only yesterday did I discover that her group, or she herself, had composed the song in memory of the event in Warrington. My wife came home from the police centre where she worked yesterday and told me the news. I got the song up on the laptop, watched the band singing, saw Dolores and listened to the words. The words are both majestic and also very real … The event at Warrington, like the many events that happened all over Ireland and Great Britain, affected families in a very real way and many people have become immune to the pain and suffering that so many people experienced during that armed campaign. To read the words written by an Irish band in such compelling way was very, very powerful."

"I’m saddened to hear of the death of Dolores O’Riordan at just 46. Her wonderful band recorded a moving song after the Warrington bomb in memory of two innocent victims, Johnathan Ball and my son Tim. RIP Dolores … I was completely unaware what it was about."

"Limerick is very very proud of [her]. As her teachers have been saying, she was a star that shone bright from the very beginning, and I wish her peace."

"Her kind personality and beautiful singing voice earned for her numerous admirers. It must be added that the numbers she rescued from the darkness of depression are impossible to count. No words are adequate to describe Dolores or to accurately state the influence for good she has been over the years."

"Do what you want to within reason but remember, take your time: nothing stops for those who can't afford to wait. The best advice that I can give you is to hold on to your head and as long as you are good and kind you'll always be a friend of mine. And it's true to say that a good friend is hard to find But I'd like to think that you are a friend of mine."

"I don't know what makes a man or a woman even think that terror isn't evil. How could anyone have plans that would guarantee the death of thousands of people? And yet as I look back now on what happened, like the calls from those in planes they were trapped in, whatever they felt that day, "I love you": that was all they wanted to say."

"It seems to me that there are more hearts broken in the world that can't be mended, left unattended. What do we do? What do we do?"

"You say you got a big house out in the country with a ruddy great swimming pool. You say you got a lot of things I never had. That's true. But are you happy? Are you happy? Are you happy? When you get right down to the nitty-gritty, are you happy? You?"

"At the very mention of your name I get shivers down my back and in my brain. The parts that used to function normally are now, as you can see, acting very strange. Oh, at the very mention of your name I don't know why but if I were tied up in chains I would somehow be released all problems too would cease my heart would never feel no pain. At the very mention of your name."

"I know that you've enjoyed all the good things money's given to you and that to have to live without them is not an easy thing to do. You take great pride in your appearance, all of which is second-to-none, and I can understand how you're feeling when you see yourself growing old, the man you love is never there to hold. But bear with me just a little bit longer. Honey, won't you bear with me, and I guarantee you that our love will grow stronger. Bear with me just a little bit longer. Honey, won't you bear with me?"

"There's nothing in the world that I'd like more than to be left standing outside your door, where perhaps I might be asked to come in. There I could very easily demonstrate of what now appears to be my fate, you see I'm hooked on something and it's not heroin. Oh, I just can't get enough of you. No, I can't get enough. What am I gonna do? I've tried every trick in the book that's going, now I've decided that they're not worth knowing, my predicament is as simple as this: I'm not satisfied, and the reason is I just can't get enough of you."

"Clair, the moment I met you I swear, I felt as if something somewhere had happened to me which I couldn't see And then, the moment I met you again, I knew in my heart that we were friends, it had to be so it couldn't be no But try as hard as I might do, I don't know why you get to me in a way I can't describe. Words mean so little when you look up and smile."

"Sometimes I think I don't know what I'm doing but I always end up doing what I know. And what I know may not, I know, be a great deal but what I know nobody can take, nobody can take, nobody can take away from me, no, no, no. Away from me, no, no, no. I do what I know. Doing what I know. Sometimes I think I don't know what I'm doing but I always end up doing what I know. Away we go, doing what I know."

"Once upon a time I drank a little wine, was as happy as could be, happy as could be, Now I'm just like a cat on a hot tin roof, Baby, what do you think you're doing to me? Told you once before and I won't tell you no more, so get down, get down, get down You're a bad dog, Baby but I still want you around, around I still want you around Hey hey hey"

"When the evening is over, put your head upon my shoulder and I'll tell you something I believe is true: happiness is me and you. In a world so distorted, where the worst is best reported love may be something that will see us through Happiness is me and you."

"I've been over and I've been under, I've been through all kinds of hell. Trouble was not only my middle name, It was my first as well. Through the years, all I've encountered, I've just one thing to say: "Hold on to what you got and don't let it slip away." I've been taken for far more rides to places I've never been, stabbed so many times in the back I no longer feel a thing. Oh, ask me what all this has taught me and I'll tell you what I'll say: "Hold on to what you got and don't let it slip away. Save it for a rainy day.""

"I guess I'll always love you... I guess I'll always care. I guess I'll always love you... I guess I'll always care." "I guess I'll always love you... I guess I'll always care. I guess I'll always love you... I guess I'll always care."

"Where to begin? The pain I am in, hard to know when to stop. Out of the blue a dream came true, only to see it drop. I'm no genius where love's concerned, more fool me to pretend. Whatever it takes, while my heart aches I'll never love again."

"I love it, but it doesn't knock me out. I think it's great, but it could be better. I like it a lot, it's just not my cup of tea, yet if you were to change the melody, take out a part that you think should be here, put in a part that wouldn't otherwise appear? Well, it's only an idea." "I hate it, but that doesn't mean it's bad. In other words, I quite enjoyed it. Apart from which, it's the best you've ever done yet if you were to change the words it would be superb... with perhaps a different melody...?"

"I have not a girl that's mine I have not a friend I have not got a place to live Indeed it seems the end But it ain't, for me as I've got myself, which matters most throughout the life I lead. I have not a penny in my pocket, and if soon I should be found just as badly broken I won't gloom cos it ain't, for me as I've got myself which matters most throughout the life I lead"

"I've never known a girl lovelier than you If I did I would be lying - that I wouldn't do Come on, have fun, mmm, make my day tonight Nothing really matters when you are in love It's the only institution I'm not weary of Don't be lonely, mmm, make my day tonight"

"You'd never think, to look at you'd never think to look at that building there, is where there used to be trees. You'd never think it, would you? You'd never think it, would you? That building there is where there used to be trees. That building there is where there... That building there is where there.. That building there is where there... used to be fields."

"Miss my love today as I miss the stars that shine above telling me one day my love will come to me again. Miss my love, I'd say, is the only thing that I can do. I just can't live with someone new reminding me of her."

"I have just one regret in life: that chance I wasted when you said goodbye. And to be honest, at the time, though I could see, I must have been blind. Oh what I'd give to have you back, relive those moments once again, I'd take your hand and we would fly, Just you and me, my love and I."

"Once I was hailed as a prodigal son. In other words, loved by everyone. Now it's so different: wherever I go, nobody wants to know. Tried having meetings. Running about. Same as I did when I started out. Now though, it's different: wherever I go, nobody wants to know."

"No matter how I try I just can't say goodbye. No matter what you say looks like I'm here to stay. No matter where I go I don't know if you know but everywhere we've been I'm kept in quarantine."

"When I'm drinking my Bonaparte shandy eating more than enough apple pies will I glance at my screen and see real human beings starve to death right in front of my eyes? Nothing old, nothing new, nothing ventured, nothing gained, nothing stillborn or lost, nothing further than proof, nothing wilder than youth, nothing older than time, nothing sweeter than wine, nothing physically recklessly hopelessly blind, nothing I couldn't say Nothing. Why? 'Cos today nothing rhymed"

"From the looks you're giving me I can tell, as well see if I've done something you think's wrong: no words need be conveyed. Then again, when we embrace, from the look that's on your face if heaven is a place on earth right here is where it's been."

"Ooh, baby, your love is so bad You, baby, you're driving me mad Ooh, baby, your kiss is so sweet You, baby, knock me off my feet Ooh, baby, I wish you were mine Ooh, baby, we'd have a good time Ooh, what can I do?"

"One minute you say you will and the next you won't, One minute you want me and the next you don't, You're turning me upside down, Giving me the runaround, Don't think that I don't know - I do, Don't think that I won't go. You watch me: It isn't out of question"

"Say it is. Say it isn't. Say it's someone else instead. Say it's good when you don't like fishing. You just knock it on the head. You just knock it on the head. Say goodbye. Say good morning. Say good evening and good noon. Say "Hello, tell me how you're feeling." "Very well thanks and how are you?""

"I never thought I'd see the day when murder would become so commonplace. Hardly a minute ever goes by without a murder taking place. And why? Well, for a start, the punishment's not hard: they sentence you to life but you're out in no time."

"Once in a while, out of the blue, I might appear somewhat rude, but don't be alarmed or get upset. Just say to yourself "This I'll forget". When I come home after being away it might do me good just to hear you say: "Darlin' don't move an inch, keep perfectly still, now do with me what you will.""

"That's the kind of love I... That's the kind of love I... That's the kind of love I need"

"When I'm alone with you it seems all my dreams come true It makes me feel so good I just can't help loving you Cos you're everything I could hope for: that's why I love you Sometimes I tell myself this girl don't love you no more and that some day with someone new she'll walk from your door But if you did, my world would break in two, that's why I love you And any time I see your face something very unusual takes place: all my inhibitions disappear now that you are here"

"You were the best fun I ever had You gave me a love that couldn't be bad You taught me things that I thought were rude Oh, ohhh, you were the best girl I ever knew (You were the best girl I ever knew) We were a couple so much in love We gave to each other over and above You made my life and I'm glad Oh, ohhh, you were the best fun I ever had You were the best fun I ever had"

"Somebody told me once money does not grow on trees. Well, if that's true, then how do you explain apples oranges and lemons, not forgetting melons?"

"It's the same the whole world over. Every year we get a little bit older. No matter what you say, no matter what you do Rich or poor, you know it's gonna happen to you."

"The way things used to be not so long ago when we were young and free. The way things used to be not so long ago you were loving me every night and every day, strong in every way passion glowing like a fire, burning with desire. Whatever happened?"

"You seem to be wanting everything yesterday. Always the impossible. That's what you seem to portray. Give me one good reason why even if I stay, you won't walk away from me tomorrow. Today."

"There is too much attention paid to him who shot at he and to how he got away but didn't quite. Yes there's too much attention So much so that we'll believe he's not guilty of the crime which he's being tried So forgive me when I tell you I ain't got no place to go I ain't got no one to talk to got no one left to say hello"

"What a way to show I love you Other than below or above you What a way to kiss each other goodbye What a way to start tomorrow Knowing that there'll be no sorrow What a way to keep each other alive"

"What's in a kiss? Have you ever wondered just what it is? More perhaps than just a moment of bliss? Tell me what's in a kiss. What's in a dream? Is it all the things you'd like to have been? All the places that you haven't yet seen? Tell me what's in a dream."

"So where did you go to, who did you see? How did you know I’d be there? Oh, and did you remember not to forget? Tell me cos I don’t... Tell me cos I don’t care Don’t care."

"When the world you live in really gets you down, when you feel a pain inside you starting to pound, and the girl you love, she doesn't want to know, let an old friend, as a godsend, lead you to where peaceful waters flow"

"Who was it that came to see you when there was no one else in sight? And who was it that stayed over an hour (and not as I'd expected, overnight)? It was me, and I'll tell you why: Oh, I did it because of my pure unabashed devotion to loving (pure unabashed devotion to loving) you, you, you, you. Who was it that caught you falling?"

"Why after all these years we've been together must you behave as if we'd hardly ever spoken, let alone met? It seems that you're happy as long as I'm upset. Oh why, oh why, oh why? Is it that you don't love me? Oh why? Have you just had enough of me? Oh why do I always have cry myself to sleep seven days a week?"

"Sat for hours in front of a screen Mouse will tell you what you are seeing When you get home, how to relax Another screen for you to look at Welcome to the world of work It's a kind of living where you give more than you'll ever receive Welcome to the world of work Only place a loyal servant can be kicked in the teeth"

"You may have given me the breaks, amended all my life's mistakes, ooh, but wait a minute, you don't own me. You may be more than just a friend on whose assistance I depend ooh, but wait a minute, you don't own me."