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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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?

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

God forgives somehow we have yet to learn the same.

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

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.

A dreamer born is a hero bred.

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

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

It's a pretty frantic world that we live in

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.

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

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.