Tracy Chapman

“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.”

“Music was never just a hobby for me. I'd pick up a guitar every day to work on whatever I was writing at the time. I would put my ideas in songs the way some people might put them in diaries or journals.”

“I never travelled when I was younger.”

“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.”

“I end up writing about all kinds of things. I never make an attempt to write about anything in particular. I don't have a little list of topics to write about.”

“Honestly, I think, as an artist, it's everything that's in your life that informs what you do. So, obviously, growing up in Cleveland has played a big role in how I see the world.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“I'm still thinking and hoping there's an opportunity for people to have better lives and that significant change can occur.”

“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.”

“As you might imagine, I'm approached by lots of organizations and lots of people who want me to support their various charitable efforts in some way. And I look at those requests, and I basically try to do what I can.”

“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 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.”

“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.”

“I dressed up as a veterinarian for a Halloween costume party. I had the lab coat. I got a couple of stuffed animals for patients and put bandages on them.”

“The songs are not necessarily autobiographical. A lot of songs are a combination of influences. It might be some part of my life, or something I've felt, or something somebody's told me. It all comes together.”

“My first record was almost not my first record.”

“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.”

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