A Quote by Tracy Chapman

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've had enormous luck and enormous pleasure in working in such forms as movies and plays that I loved when I was a kid and I just - because I could always write dialogue, because I always had a sense of how people spoke. And because I had a strong narrative sense; growing up and loving stories, loving novels, I just seem to know how to tell a story and I read a lot, I went to a lot of movies, I went to a lot of plays, and it rubbed off on me. And that's all. It just rubbed off on me.
I've always had a sense of groundedness as a person. I think that's helped me. My mother sort of beat into me the notion of humility, and I think my focus has always been on the right things or the things that I'm passionate about, which is just simply the work.
[My mother] told me a little bit about the scene out there and I think, as a small child, I just always felt a connection to that history because my mother had described it to me.
I always went to my sister, because she was older and had the care of me after my mother died.
I always wanted to be a surgeon, because I had a lot of admiration for my father, who is also a surgeon. I also wanted to be a heart surgeon. That was motivated by the fact that my young aunt, a sister of my dad, died in her early 20s of a correctable heart disease.
I have always loved animals, and as a child, I read a lot of horse books. I had a particular favorite called 'Silver Snaffles' that my mother gave away.
I don't know if I even consider myself a very political person. I have always had strong beliefs on important social issues. Politics have politicized social issues, but I don't know if social issues are in fact political. If anything, they are more human issues than they are political issues.
When I became a Sigma Chi it was great, because they were the pople I enjoyed being with and I was very proud of the association. It was kind of an instant confidence builder for me--that what I considered the best fraternity on campus had actually wanted me. And I had always been very shy and without a lot of confidence. So it was a really good social experience and for me it was also a social maturation. It was a great benefit.
I've always had this interest in sibling relationships because I don't have any siblings. I'm completely a product of the one-child policy in China, so I always kind of wished that I had an older brother or a younger brother or sister just to have that bond, so I find myself constantly writing about that relationship.
It's true - my mother kicked me out the house at 14. I had to go live with my sister. I had some problems. I was very rebellious as a kid. I don't even know why or where it came from, but I had a lot of anger. Me and my mom clashed a lot because she didn't tolerate that, as she shouldn't from a 14-year-old.
My mother had her dresses made. In those days in Chile, the early '70s, people had dressmakers make their things. With the leftovers, my sister and I always had a matching outfit. She had an outfit, we had the mini version. That was the very late '60s, early '70s way to dress your kids.
I was raised primarily by women. I had a mother who almost killed herself to survive, I had a sister who was eight years older who was like a second mother, and my mother had two sisters. In the environment I grew up in, I heard a lot of female perspectives.
I've always had this incredible sense of urgency. I've always had this desire not to let things fester and to really seize the moment, because it's serendipity.
My sister and I had resolved never to become teachers because the job seemed to demand so much. My mother always seemed to be working. Our dining room table was cluttered with papers waiting to be read and graded.
My mother had a lot of parties when I was a child. There'd always be a moment when she would place me on the upright piano and have me sing Somewhere 'Over the Rainbow'.
My mother had a lot of parties when I was a child. There'd always be a moment when she would place me on the upright piano and have me sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
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