Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I mentioned that I received a scholarship to Episcopalian school, and the model for the school was 'From each according to his or her ability and to each according to his or her need.' And it's something that is still really important to me in thinking about how I prioritize what I do with my life. "

Tracy Chapman

School

Her

My Life

Related Quotes:

" I think many people would say that writers like Stephen King have hypergraphia. "

Tracy Chapman

King

People

" Maybe it's naive to say, but it almost seems like, in the past, people tried to sell you something you would actually need, like a hammer or a broom or a toothbrush. But now there's this notion that they can sell you anything. And all they have to do is convince you that you need it. "

" There have been some gains made in terms of more equality for women in the workplace and in the way the legal system deals with issues of violence against women. "

" I picked up the guitar at 11, but even before then, I was writing songs on the organ. "

Tracy Chapman

Writing

Even

" As I started to consider a career in music, I hoped for success, truthfully. I didn't imagine anything that would amass the level of the first record, but I hoped that I would be able to sustain a career. "

" We do need to think about how we have security - everyone has a right to that - but we also need to think about how we maintain civil rights and personal freedom. "

" I grew up with music in the house. I was told I could sing as soon as I started talking. Everybody in my family sang, always lots of records, blues and jazz and soul, R&B, you know, like Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Coltrane, that kind of thing. "

" So much has happened to obscure the dialogue about race and about gender and discrimination in general, especially where those things touch on economics. "

" At this point in my life I'd like to live as if only love mattered. "

Tracy Chapman

Point

My Life

" My older sister encouraged me from early on and bought me one of the first guitars I had. She listened to all of the crappy songs that I wrote when I was 8 years old and encouraged me to keep doing it. "

Tracy Chapman

Doing

Early

" One of the reasons I chose Tufts is that they have one of the best veterinary schools in the country. Since I was six years old, I wanted to be a veterinarian. "

" There's a time and place for everything, and my focus is music. So that's what I prefer to spend most of my time doing, and not talk about making music. "

" My first record was almost not my first record. "

" I love living in California and being able to go to the beach or go to the woods. "

" I meet people in my daily life, people who seem to experience some change and some growth on a personal level, and that gives me hope. "

" Songwriting is a very mysterious process. It feels like creating something from nothing. It's something I don't feel like I really control. "

Tracy Chapman

Nothing

Feel

" I was raised in a Baptist tradition, but then I went to an Episcopalian high school, and they were very accepting of people of all faiths. "

" I never travelled when I was younger. "

" I can't think of anything worse, really, than to try to live up to someone else's expectations of what you should be. You don't make art by consensus. "

" Everyone is looking for connections between the songs. I don't usually approach a record as a concept. There's no overriding theme I'm trying to represent. It's all about the individual songs. "

" I think it's important, if you are an artist, to use your music to stand up for what you believe in. "

" As a child I always had a sense of social conditions and political situations. I think it had to do with the fact that my mother was always discussing things with my sister and me - also because I read a lot. "

" I found myself in the middle of a race riot when I was about 14 years old, and I found someone pointing a gun at me and telling me to run or they'd shoot me. "

Tracy Chapman

Run

Gun

" It all comes together. It's - that's the way it's always worked for me with songwriting. "

Tracy Chapman

Always

Way

" The way popular music is categorized and formatted cuts down on everyone's options. And although people don't talk about it, there are a lot of issues of race determining musical categories of what's rock, R&B, or even folk. It ends up restricting creativity. "

" I never assumed I would have that commercial success, so it was a total surprise. And honestly, I never assumed that it would ever happen again. "

" When we started making 'Where You Live', I bought a bunch of Polaroid cameras in so that people could record the experience. Some of those pictures are in the CD sleeve. "

" When you feel like you've had a good show, you go backstage and you talk to yourself about it, and if you have a bad show you talk to yourself about it. "

" Love's a recurring theme through my work. "

" I don't try to project any image at all, other than the person that I am. "