Harry Chapin Quotes

I've found that in now having experienced what it's like to make records and just through growing up in general that you should be expressive about what's affecting you instead of trying to sing about a subject just for the sake of other people getting something from it.

My work is has always been very, very personal.

All of my records have been very personal, just writing more and more songs, you get better at being able to say what you feel.

I'm not afraid to write my feelings in songs.

I had no idea I was gonna be a songwriter, because I was too young to know my own evolution. I started playing the violin as a way to express myself because I didn't have a lot of vocabulary when I was 14.

The biggest thing that I hope people take away when they listen to my music is that they feel that there is an outlet being presented that allows them to be more authentic and for them to be more honest in their own lives.

I want to write from my own experience.

I try as hard as I can to write from a personal place and be genuine.

I very much enjoy writing about positive, direct emotions.

My music's matured so much, I don't have to create any barriers.

I've never been about just trying to do what works. I've been about trying to authentically express how I feel.

I don’t have a problem baring my emotions in music. That’s one of the reasons I’m glad to have music in my life. I’m pretty resilient as far as being a human being. A lot of songs write themselves.

Don't write about your most emotionally charged moment as a learning thing.

The first book is the book you have to write to get back at your parents; the book you always had in you. Once you get that out of your way, you can start writing books.

Try to write in a directly emotional way, instead of being too subtle or oblique. Don't be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done.

I know definitive points in my life and in relationships because of my songs. I write my music so that I'll never be bored of it.

I was a very violent kid. I think movies and writing and art have been a way of channeling this. But I have will to defend people - it can be all sorts of people.

You know what, I just write what I feel.

For me, the more I live, the more I need to write. The more I push myself to really live and really experience things and step outside of my comfort zone, the more the songs are allowed to flow.

I've always had a great love of music since childhood. It changes every day.. every time you write, it's a new experience. It's a self expression.

Sometimes I was in a mood to write a song as if I was writing in my journal and reveal certain parts of me that I was ready to reveal.

The person I am in the company of my sisters has been entirely different from the person I am in the company of other people. Fearless, powerful, surprising, moved as I otherwise am only when I write.

Dramatic reading and writing for kids can open a window to individuality and to expression that nothing else does, because all of a sudden the pressure is off and they just bring themselves to the table.

Sometimes I write music, sometimes I don't. I think I'm just writing more what's close to my heart, and musical stuff is close to my heart, and it's fun to write, and when something's fun to write you don't think about what statement you're trying to make or what genre you're trying to hone in on.

...there are two kinds of writing: the one you write and the one that writes you.