Tracy Chapman

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

I started playing and writing songs when I was eight.

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.

I don't know - I'm not sure about anything as far as religion and spirituality go.

It's fun playing small venues.

A lot of kids spent more time out of school than in, but I always loved school and thought it was my way out of Cleveland, and out of poverty.

I'm not sure about anything as far as religion and spirituality go.

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

As a child, I spent a lot of time at the library.

If you are living a life that feels right to you, if you're willing to take creative chances or a creative path that feels like it's mostly in keeping with your sensibilities, you know, aesthetic and artistic, then that's what matters.

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.

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.

Men are able to sustain a career into their 50s and 60s and still present themselves as sex symbols. With women, on the other hand, people say, 'Why doesn't she retire?'

What does the future look like if the heads of society ask our young people to risk their lives for questionable causes? I think it looks rather bleak.

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.

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

I think of the audience the way I would think of another person: You meet someone, then you take it from there; you see what's interesting to both of you.

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

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.

Stand up for yourself and fight for your right to be the artist that you want to be. There's plenty of pressure from outside; people tell you how to dress and how to sing or what to sing, but I always felt like if I'm going to fail or succeed, I want to do it on my own terms.

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 always considered trying to make a living playing music. But it was always really clear to me, at the various stages in my life, that it really wasn't a possibility unless some phenomenal thing happened.

I won't get into it any more than to say that there are parts of me in all the songs that I write.

I could make records at home in a vacuum, but that is not the situation. I'm just taking it one phase at a time.

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.

I decided to do whatever I could to make sure the business side of music didn't intrude on the creative part.

That's one of the things I like about San Francisco. It's not like anywhere else in the world.

You need to keep something for yourself. As a writer, I feel that even more strongly. I feel like I need to be able to freely observe the world. That's the way I like to move through the world; I don't need to be the focus of attention. If I am, it impairs my ability to write and to do what I do.

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.

My first record was almost not my first record.

I never travelled when I was younger.

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 had a ukulele when I was much younger. I have no idea what happened to it but I think that was part of it, just being inspired and wanting to try to play an instrument that, to me, sounded beautiful.

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

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.

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.

That's what everyone should do with their lives: stand up for what they believe in or try to do some good in the world. I don't think artists have a greater responsibility than anyone else.

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.

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.

After it's finished, sometimes I can trace a path that goes back to the possible source of inspiration.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

I may be revered or defamed and decried; But I tried to live my life right.