Mary Chapin Carpenter Quotes:

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.

source: - Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

Topics: Appreciation, Song, Feelings

In this world, you've a soul for a compass and a heart for a pair of wings.

source: - Song: Why Walk When You Can Fly?, Album: Stones in the Road, 1994

Topics: Heart, Wings, Soul

You've gotta know happy. You've gotta know sad. 'Cause you're gonna know lonely and you're gonna know sad

Topics: Lonely, Causes

Dreamland is a book, but it's my song in book form. It's translated itself into a different medium.

Topics: Song, Book, Different, Dreamland

I don't think you need to dumb down to a child, you merely have to be clear, you know?

Topics: Children, Thinking, Dumb

Emmy Lou Harris introduced me to the work of the Vietnam Veterans of America foundation and the Campaign for a Land Mine Free World.

Topics: Land, America, Campaigns, Free World, Vietnam Veteran

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.

Topics: Heart, Thinking, Soul

It's a pretty frantic world that we live in

Topics: World, Frantic

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.

Topics: Education, Fate, People, Playing It Safe

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.

source: - Song: Your Life Story, Album: The Calling

Topics: Stars, Grace, Maps, Flashlights, Amazing Grace

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.

Topics: Girl, Song, Single Life, Single Girl

I don't really remember my folks singing to us, but they read to us.

Topics: Singing, Remember, Folks

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.

Topics: Thinking, Careers, Years

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.

Topics: Europe, Age, Athens, Extraordinary Beauty, Unspeakable

Think I'll flip a coin, I'm a winner either way Mmmmmm, I feel lucky today

Topics: Philosophical, Thinking, Today

A dreamer born is a hero bred...

source: - Song: Heroes And Heroines, Album: Hometown Girl, 1987

Topics: Love, Dream, Hero

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?

Topics: Life, Lines, Want, Straight Lines, Peaks And Valleys

Sometimes you get there in spite of the route Losing track of your life and what it's about The road seems to know when to straighten right out... I could wonder if all of it led me to you I could show you the arrows and circles I drew I didn't have a map, it's the best I could do On the fly and on the run

Topics: Life, Running, Circles

In this world you've a soul for a compass And a heart for a pair of wings There's a star on the far horizon Rising bright in an azure sky For the rest of the time that you're given Why walk when you can fly?

source: - Song: Why Walk When You Can Fly?, 1994

Topics: Inspirational, Life, Stars, Azure

About age ten, we moved from the place where I was born, moved overseas.

Topics: Age, Born, Moved

God forgives somehow we have yet to learn the same.

source: - Song: Dead Man Walking

Topics: Forgiveness, Forgiving, God Forgives

I take my chances. I can't cling to remorse or regret.

Topics: Inspirational, Regret, Chance

I found Elvis on the Internet, I went camping with a young cadet, he showed me his bayonet.

Topics: Bayonets, Cadets, Camping

Fool you once, you are forgiven. Fool you twice, you're just a fool.

Topics: Fool, Adages, Forgiven

There's two lanes running down this road which ever side your on, accounts for where you want to go or what you're running from.

Topics: Running, Philosophy, Two

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.

Topics: Thinking, Careers

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.

Topics: Song, Self, World

I'm a liberal arts junkie.

Topics: Art, Liberal Arts, Junkie

I've crossed lines of word and wire and both have cut me deep. I've been frozen out and I've been on fire, and the tears are mine to weep.

Topics: Sadness, Cutting, Fire

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.

Topics: Art, Home, Figures, Liberal Arts

I woke to find every window open I woke to find the heavy door ajar And I walked outside and stood upon the hilltop And gazed once more on a bright morning star I walked outside and every bird was singing As I found again my bright morning star

Topics: Morning, Stars, Doors

And I can tell by the way you're searching For something you can't even name That you haven't been able to come to the table Simply glad that you came And when you feel like this try to imagine That we're all like frail boats on the sea Just scanning the night for that great guiding light Announcing the Jubilee

source: - Song: Jubilee, Album: Stones in the Road, 1994

Topics: Night, Sea, Names, Jubilee, Scanning

The light of the moon is all we've got to go on...

Topics: Moon, Light, Goes On

Gather up your telegrams Your faded pictures, best laid plans Books and postcards, 45's Every sunset in the sky 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 Maybe what we leave Is nothing but a tangled little mystery Maybe what we take Is nothing that has ever had a name

source: - Song: Your Life Story, Album: The Calling

Topics: Stars, Book, Sunset, Postcards, Flashlights

Tonight, the moon came out, it was nearly full. Way down here on earth, I could feel it's pull. The weight of gravity or just the lure of life, Made me want to leave my only home tonight. I'm just wondering how we know where we belong Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn Singing in between here and gone

Topics: Life, Home, Firefly, Lure

We all have two lives. The one we are given and the one we create.

Topics: Inspirational, Two, Given, Two Lives

Every sleepy boy and girl in every bed around the world- Can hear the stars up in the sky whispering a lullaby

Topics: Girl, Stars, Children, Boy And Girl, Lullaby

Was it a light only she could see? A gypsy's spell? A mystery?

Topics: Light, Gypsy, Mystery

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 Christopher

Topics: Girl, Running, Stars, World Life, Blind Man

I don't remember a voice On a dark, lonesome road When I started this journey so long ago I was only just trying to outrun the noise There was never a question of having a choice

Topics: Dark, Journey, Voice, Outrun

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.

Topics: Jobs, Labels, Stylist

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.

Topics: Summer, Jobs, Home

I kept thinking, I went to college and I have to get a real job.

Topics: Jobs, Real, College

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.

Topics: Music, Thinking, Artist

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.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Thinking, Skills, Piano, Amazing Experiences

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."

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Thinking, Trying, Musician

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.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Song, Writing, Feel Good

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.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Play, People, Able

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.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Guitar, Ukulele, Scribbles, Playing 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.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Writing, Littles, Way, Creatures Of Habit

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.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Color, Interesting, Different, Holograms

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.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Country, Able, Way

I think topical songwriting is a real gift, and it's hard not to be pedantic and show up with the sledgehammer message.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Real, Thinking, Messages, Pedantic

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.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Country, Nashville, Listening

I know some artists who come out of country music and the three sessions a day work ethic where you walk in, and you're told you play this note, this note, and this note, and you don't vary it. I know that works great for some people. It wouldn't work for me.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Country, Artist, Play

Everything changes in every genre, whether it's pop, rock or country.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Country, Rocks, Things Change

As far as politically how country music goes, it's true that it's regarded from a distance as a genre of music that at different times, the more right elements of the political spectrum have claimed for their own.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Country, Distance, Political, Political Spectrum, Genres Of Music

I feel like politics have always informed what I do. If you know anything about my music, you know I've never been shy about stating how I vote.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Shy, Vote, Feels

In the late 80s, artists could be signed to labels and be nurtured. It wasn't, "We're going to give you one shot, and if you don't measure up, you're gone".

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Artist, Giving, Labels

When I started out, it was this sense of, "Let's put out a record and see what happens and see where you go and see how you feel and where we can take it." That was a very different world back then.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Different, Records, World, Different Worlds

The joy of being in the studio is having people being utterly free to throw out their ideas.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Ideas, People, Joy

It seemed inevitable to try to address my feelings about everything that had happened. To a certain degree, it felt cathartic, but it's less cathartic to me than it is illuminating and helping me navigate my own feelings.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Feelings, Trying, Degrees, Cathartic

20-some years ago, I'd have a big old radio with a tape deck, and I'd hit record and try to get something down on the tape, but nowadays, I can use my handy little smart-phone; I sing into the app for voice memo.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Smart, Phones, Years, Memos

I certainly felt the desire to reach as many people as I could; I wanted to make the most of this opportunity, sure. But I wouldn't call it pressure the way we're thinking of it now.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Opportunity, Thinking, People