I'm trying to make a case for those people who don't have a sense of belonging that they should have, that there is something really worthwhile in having a sense of belonging, and recasting and looking at our modern history.

An isolationist America is no bloody use to anyone.

I was in a little punk band and we put out a few punk records that weren't very political, at all.

So, in some ways, the political songs tend to be a bit more like reportage, whereas the love songs tend to be like novels, you can pick them up off the shelf and go into them any time.

I'm still batting away on my politics for the Labour Party. I'm much further to the left of them than I used to be, but that's because they've moved, not me.

But, in the end, even a song that's as politically bland as Blowin in the Wind, you probably wouldn't get up and sing that now, whereas some of Bob Dylan's love songs that were contemporary with that, like say Girl from the North Country, you can still get up an play now.

It's not a very popular subject amongst my audience, who are by nature more internationalist, but I don't choose what to write about, I don't choose my subjects, they kind of choose me.

Being spokesman for a generation is the worst job I ever had.

Were it not for the Clash, punk would have been just a sneer, a safety pin and a pair of bondage trousers.

There are quite a few honest songwriters out there writing about relationships and their own personality traits. But for some reason, once they step out of the bedroom, their honesty doesn't seem to come with them.

All the great political music was made at the height of political confrontations.

The most important thing for anyone, I think, is to be engaged, whether you're an artist or a journalist is to be engaged in the process at some level.

I'm trying to make a case for those people who don't have a sense of belonging that they should have, that there is something really worthwhile in having a sense of belonging, and recasting and looking at our modern history.

I came into this whole business by going to see Rock Against Racism gigs with the Clash.

That taught me one lesson which is that you're naive to believe that bands can change the world. Bands are very naive to think that just if their audience thinks that they can change the world, that they can. That was quite a lesson for my career, really.

Even with politics, stuff comes around again. Woody Guthrie would recognize America today.

I enjoyed so much working with the guys from Wilco, and riffing off of them, and having someone come up to me with ideas, because normally in the studio it's me who has to come up with all the ideas.

My theory is this; I'm not a political songwriter. I'm an honest songwriter.

I've had songs written during the Falklands war, and during the first Gulf war I got letters from soldiers saying they were listening to these songs, like Island of no return.

In that sense, I became politicized because the people in the coal mining villages who were involved in the struggle knew why they were there. But they couldn't understand why some pop star from London would want to be there.

My upbringing was very straightforward suburban working class upbringing.

All musicians start out with ideals but hanging on to them in the face of media scrutiny takes real integrity. Tougher still is to live up to the ideals of your dedicated fans.

I try and write honestly about what I see around me now.

By the time I was 19, punk had occurred. It had a completely different cultural dynamic to it which rejected everything and started again from the year zero.

We read our own political content into The Clash, and they accepted it.

Most of the people that I went to school with - I went to secondary school - we were educated to go and work in the line at Ford's, and if we were lucky, technical skilled labor. I sort of rejected that, and thought I wanted to do something else.

The main thing is to make history, not to write it.

The sanctity of our battlefields, monuments, and veterans institutions is of utmost importance to preserve military history and pay respect to those who fought.

I don't have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I'm left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct.

I don't have a strong interest in history.

Few men in our history have ever obtained the Presidency by planning to obtain it.

The big battle at the end of DW isn't drawn from history, but it's influenced by history, certainly.

I wanted to be a part of the Disney history.

Research is of considerable importance in certain fields, such as science and history.

What a year to live in! Worth all other times ever known in our history or any other.

There is little evidence that our individual intelligence has improved through recorded history.

The history of Christianity, therefore, must be of concern to all who are interested in the record of man and particularly to all who seek to understand the contemporary human scene.

I know the history of the record business so well because I followed Billie Holiday into the record studios. It was so primitive compared to the sophisticated business today.

The only hope is that our civilization will collapse at a certain point, as always happens in history. Then, out of barbarity, a renaissance.

In economic panics throughout history, the wiping out of the savings accounts of lower earners and the middle class has often led to social revolution, sometimes violent upheavals.

The greatest untapped reservoir of raw material in the history of our game is the black race.

Yet through history gays have always dominated religious life and churches.

Out of Coltrane's whole history, there are things which I think are great from all the periods.

I got a call to come in and meet Fox, and the rest is history.

Like most of those who study history, he (Napoleon III) learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.

The problem with allowing God a role in the history of life is not that science would cease, but rather that scientists would have to acknowledge the existence of something important which is outside the boundaries of natural science.

We criticize, copy, patronize, idolize and insult but we never doubt that the U.S. has a unique position in the history of human hopes.

I've been on the show for six years and I don't even know what her history is. I sort of make things up in my mind, but I think it's hard for an audience to follow and invest in a character when they don't have the details.

So the old Copenhagen interpretation needs to be generalized, needs to be replaced by something that can be used for the whole universe, and can be used also in cases where there is plenty of individuality and history.