Mary Chapin Carpenter
I think that every new record is a chance to... I think what it is for me is my heart and soul at that moment in time... I've always felt that just being able to make a record is a privilege.Collection: Chance
My sisters and I were fortunate to travel through Asia and Europe at very young ages. We confronted extraordinary beauty in Athens and unspeakable poverty in India.Collection: Travel
As far as feeling freedom in my career now versus five years ago... I think if I feel any more free it's simply because of the experiences that I've had, and the wisdom I've accumulated from that time.Collection: Wisdom
It's a pretty frantic world that we live in.
I don't think you need to dumb down to a child, you merely have to be clear, you know?
It's a marvelous feeling when someone says 'I want to do this song of yours' because they've connected to it. That's what I'm after.
Dreamland is a book, but it's my song in book form. It's translated itself into a different medium.
About age ten, we moved from the place where I was born, moved overseas.
I don't really remember my folks singing to us, but they read to us.
I'm a liberal arts junkie.
I've never... when I was having songs on the airwaves, and that sort of thing, I never felt a sense of pressure anywhere except from myself, to do things the way I wanted to do them; to feel authentic; to feel like I was presenting my true self to the world.
So I think that if I do feel more freedom right now in my career, it's not so much because I have less at stake but more a sense that I've learned more.
When I think of the artists I admire and seek out musically. It's because I'm curious about where they're going to go the next time they have a chance to put a record out. It's not about where I find them on the radio dial, or how many records they're selling.
Emmy Lou Harris introduced me to the work of the Vietnam Veterans of America foundation and the Campaign for a Land Mine Free World.
There's timing. And then there's also certain people at the record company who worked incredibly hard and were incredibly enthusiastic about what I was doing.
I went to college and I never allowed myself to think for an instant that I would have this chance to do this.
I kept thinking, I went to college and I have to get a real job.
I was a liberal arts junkie and I figured, well, I'll go work for somebody somewhere. All I knew was that I was going to have to come home and figure it out.
So I came home and I had a resume and everything, but the only job experience I had was just playing in bars and clubs on my summers off. So, I was temping and stuff during the day and playing music at night.
You know, I didn't have enough money to quit my day job... the myth of the major label deal. Nowadays, you have a tour bus and a stylist and all this stuff. But back then, no way.
You know, that single girl life and that sense of isolation - that doesn't leave you just like that. And that's what that song is about. I remember that, and that is imprinted on me, that sense.
It's like the code of living by yourself. People who are single know what I'm talking about. You eat standing up, reading the paper. Or you say to yourself, this isn't even cutting it, I'm taking a TV dinner and I'm getting in bed here.
It's a marvelous feeling when someone says I want to do this song of yours because they've connected to it. That's what I'm after.Collection: Music
We all have two lives. The one we are given and the one we create.Collection: Inspirational
Carry with you maps and string, flashlights, friends who make you sing, and stars to help you find your place, music, hope, and amazing grace.Collection: Stars
Life is never a straight line - it's peaks and valleys. Why would you want to be the same person every day of your life?Collection: Life
Some people say that you should not tempt fate and for them I cannot disagree, but I never learned anything from playing it safe. I say fate should not tempt me.Collection: Education
In this world, you've a soul for a compass and a heart for a pair of wings.Collection: Heart
God forgives somehow we have yet to learn the same.Collection: Forgiveness
I think on a stage in front of thousands of people is a wildly invigorating and amazing experience, and it requires a certain skill set; then being in the studio, and being curled up in the fetal position under the piano, that requires another skill set.Collection: Thinking
A dreamer born is a hero bred.Collection: Love
You've gotta know happy. You've gotta know sad. 'Cause you're gonna know lonely and you're gonna know sadCollection: Lonely
It's a pretty frantic world that we live inCollection: World
I love to write songs and sing them, and I didn't really know much more than that. Somehow it's gotten to the point where a friend can say, "It's very you," and that made me feel good.Collection: Song
I take my chances. I can't cling to remorse or regret.Collection: Inspirational
I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I want to try it again and again, and a lot of times my fellow musicians have to hold me back and say, "Nah, I think we got it."Collection: Thinking
Was it a light only she could see? A gypsy's spell? A mystery?Collection: Light
I feel that it's nothing if not an incredible privilege to be able to get up on stage and play for people, and I don't ever take it for granted.Collection: Play
I was really young, but I can't say that I wrote much of anything. I liked to scribble; I thought of it as that. But I was playing guitar and ukulele when I was in second grade.Collection: Guitar
I like to feel that every day or most days, I do a little bit of writing. I am a creature of habit in terms of the way I live.Collection: Writing
When I was young I spoke like a child I saw with a child's eyes And an open door was to a girl Like the stars are to the sky It's funny how the world lives up to All your expectations With adventures for the stout of heart And the lure of the open spaces There's two lanes running down this road And whichever side you're on Accounts for where you want to go Or what you're running from Back when darkness overtook me On a blind man's curve I relied upon the moon and Saint ChristopherCollection: Girl
I found Elvis on the Internet, I went camping with a young cadet, he showed me his bayonet.Collection: Bayonets
I feel like they're different creatures, live and in the studio, but that's what makes it so interesting to me. If they didn't have any different shadings or colors, you might as well be a hologram or something.Collection: Color
The bedrock thing of country music is, it's about storytelling. I feel like I was able to find a niche because I connected to that in some way.Collection: Country
I think topical songwriting is a real gift, and it's hard not to be pedantic and show up with the sledgehammer message.Collection: Real
I grew up listening to everything, and when I got signed to a record deal out of Nashville, that was my introduction to what was happening in country music.Collection: Country