Tony Clayton-Leahas sifted through everything ever said about or by U2, for a new book of quotations. Six months on he's still a fan but, as the following bon mots illustrate, not everyone is . . .

THERE were several reasons I chose a collection of quotations as the format for my 'U2' book - notably the fact that too many bad and boring biographies of the band had already been written and I didn't fancy adding another to the pile.

My most intimate contact with the band is having once stood beside Larry Mullen Jr in a gents toilet (er, obviously!) in Slane Castle. I have spoken to Bono twice (once over the phone for an article on Paul Brady for Mojo magazine, and once backstage at an Elevation gig in Manchester). I have neither met nor spoken to Edge or Adam (who is not a distant relative). So aside from what I glean from interviews and their music, I don't really know anything about them.

In the course of trudging through the material for this book, I learnt that most of the existing biographies tell you absolutely nothing, and that the best book about the band is U2 - the Early Days: Another Time Another Place by Bill Graham. I learnt also that they all have their hearts in the right place and that they'd be fucked as a functioning unit if wasn't for Larry Mullen Jr. But enough from me; here's what other people think . . .

Bad-mouthing the band

"I really disliked them in the early days . . . I still feel they're not talented enough to take on being The Best Group In The World, even if their sales figures, image and general demeanour lends itself to that title. I mean, who is it between? U2 and Metallica? I prefer Metallica, actually."

Nick Kent, Hot Press (August 10th, 1994)

"Never liked them. That whole thing of Bono becoming the Pope - what the fuck's that all about? Pseudo-American rubbish."

Paul Weller, Daily Mail (May 2006)

"Only the little people pay taxes, as Leona Helmsley loftily observed to her maid. Which may explain why U2's publicity machine has been trying so hard for so long to persuade us that Bono is really more than five feet six inches tall."

Hugh Linehan, The Irish Times (August 2006)

"(Words such as) 'Irishness and independence', 'spirituality', 'community' and 'imagination' are always good for a giggle when you wonder just what Bono's lyrics would have been like had it not been for the blokes who wrote the Bible."

George Byrne, Irish Independent (May 27th, 2006)

"For a while Bono was Bon Smelly Arse. I was glad that didn't stick, or things might have been different. "

Edge on early band member nicknames, U2 By U2 (October 2006)

"The most boring band in the world. There may be groups equally as dull, but I fail to see how any of them can be worse."

David Quantick, NME (November 1984)

"They could never fool me . . . That guy with the bubble butt waving a white flag! And Edge doing that fucking fake-ass pilgrim gig . . . The world kisses their ass and it is the biggest pile of shite I have ever heard."

Henry Rollins, U2 At The End Of The World, by Bill Flanagan (Bantam Press, 1995)

"It's impossible to take U2 as seriously as they take themselves. When Bono emotes lines like 'No one is blinder than he who will not see . . .' I want to wish him a speedy recovery from adolescence."

Review of October, Rolling Stone (1981)

"Another example of rock music's impotence and decay."

Review of War, NME (March 1983)

"I'll walk into the pub and some old guy will go, 'Larry, yer man Bono, he's a fucking eejit'."

Larry Mullen Jr on being accosted by strangers in Dublin, Q (November 2004)

Tony Clayton-Lea is the author of Popaganda - Essential U2 Quotes, published by Hodder Headline Ireland.