Harry Chapin Quotes

Our lives are to be used and thus to be lived as fully as possible, and truly it seems that we are never so alive as when we concern ourselves with other people.

And the wind will whip your tousled hair, The sun, the rain, the sweet despair, Great tales of love and strife. And somewhere on your path to glory You will write your story of a life.

To know is to care, to care is to act, to act is to make a difference.

We all have the potential to move the world, and the world is ready to be moved.

No straight lines make up my life; And all my roads have bends; There's no clear-cut beginnings; And so far no dead-ends.

I believe that success brings responsibility. It also does not bring immunity to the consequences of our quickening march towards oblivion. The bottom line is that all of us should be invovled in our own futures to create a world that our children will want to live in.

Be involved with the people with the live hearts, the live eyes, who are committed to something.

If a man tried to take his time on earth and prove before he died, what one man's life could be worth, well I wonder what would happen to this world?

If we can muster up that degree of commitment and get away from the uniquely American perception that if something can't be done immediately it isn't worth doing, then I think the Hunger Movement, this small but growing minority of us, can have a truly significant impact.

When in doubt, do something.

What is needed is a marriage of two impulses, a coupling of the urge to do something positive with the willingness to constantly re-evaluate how effectively our actions lead to our goal - that of ending world hunger.

Good tired, ironically enough, can be a day that you lost. But you won’t even have to tell yourself, because you knew you fought your battles, you chased your dreams, you lived your days. And when you hit the hay at night, you settle easy, you sleep the sleep of the just, and you can say, “Take me away.

Strum your guitar sing it kid Just write about your feelings not the things you never did Inexperience, it once had cursed me But your youth is no handicap it's what makes you thirsty

The little boy went first day of school He got some crayons and started to draw He put colors all over the paper For colors was what he saw And the teacher said.. "What you doin' young man?" "I'm paintin' flowers" he said She said... "It's not the time for art young man And anyway flowers are green and red There's a time for everything young man And a way it should be done You've got to show concern for everyone else For you're not the only one.

I've got nothing against selling out, but just let me do it for something that matters. Not so I can be Number One With a Bullet, as it were, but so I can leave this world feeling like I made a difference.

The major thing I'm afraid of is being 65 and saying, 'Gee, I wish I had done this and that, and that.' I want to face old age knowing I've tried all I wanted to try.

All of us should be involved in our own futures to create a world that our children will want to live in.

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, Little boy blue and the man in the moon. "When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when, But we'll get together then. You know we'll have a good time then.

I want the fact that I existed to mean something.

There are so many colors in the rainbow So many colors in the morning sun So many colors in the flower and I see every one.

If you try to look But you don't touch Then you won't touch But you'll never feel And if you don't feel You'll never cry And if you don't cry Then you'll never heal.

He was dancing to some music No one else had ever heard He'd speak in unknown languages She would translate every word And then when the world was laughing At his castles in the sky She'd hold him in her body Till he once again could fly.

Short stories that's all it's ever been Don't you worry 'bout the ending Babe, before we begin I have seen the sun That's behind the rain I have felt the joy That's behind the pain.

Good dreams don't come cheap You've got to pay for them.

That's when I asked her where was that actress She said "That was somebody else" And then I asked her why she looked so happy now She said "I finally like myself, at last I like myself.

There are lessons to life That the lovers got to learn There are corners out there You know they're waitin' somewhere And you've got to be prepared to turn There are callouses that come That the lovers got to earn In the years of your youth You can't be fire proof You know you've got to get burned.

She sings the songs without words Songs that sailors, and blind men, and beggars have heard She knows more of love than the poets can say And her eyes are for something that won't go away.

When you're going nowhere, anywhere's a better place to be.

The rock is gonna fall on us," he stood and told the class The professor put his chalk down and peered out through his glasses But he went on and said; "I've seen it, high up on the hill If it doesn't fall this year then very soon it will!

All my life's a circle; Sunrise and sundown; Moon rolls thru the nighttime; Till the daybreak comes around.

I finally like myself, at last I like myself.

The reason I fight for the arts as well as against hunger is because the arts are the qualitative way, are the effective way, are the traditional way we learn to make value decisions about who and what we are.

I'd rather make a mistake than do nothing.

And we would play together, like fine musicians should, And it would sound like music, and the music would sound good. But in real life I'm stuck with that same old formula, me and my monophonic symphony, six string orchestra.

You see, she was gonna be an actress and I was gonna learn to fly. She took off to find the footlights, and I took off for the sky. And here, she's acting happy, inside her handsome home. And me, I'm flying in my taxi, taking tips, and getting stoned. I go flying so high, when I'm stoned.

Good dreams don't come cheap, you've got to pay for them and If you just dream when you're asleep this is no way for them to come alive... to survive.

We've more important studies than your fantasies and fears You know that rock's been perched up there for a hundred thousand years.

I went to sleep with the hope that made America famous. I had the kind of a dream that maybe they're still trying to teach in school. Of the America that made America famous...and Of the people who just might understand That how together yes we can Create a country better than The one we have made of this land, We have a choice to make each man who dares to dream, reaching out his hand A prophet or just a crazy God damn Dreamer of a fool

And while blood's the only language that your deaf old ears can hear And still you will not answer with that message coming clear Does it mean there's no more ripples in your tired old glory stream And the buzzards own the carcass of your dream?

What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys.

The very day I purchased it, I christened my guitar as my monophonic symphony, six string orchestra.

When I started this song I was still thirty-three The age that Mozart died and sweet Jesus was set free Keats and Shelley too soon finished, Charley Parker would be And I fantasized some tragedy'd be soon curtailing me Well just today I had my birthday I made it thirty-four Mere mortal, not immortal, not star-crossed anymore I've got this problem with my aging I no longer can ignore A tame and toothless tabby can't produce a lion's roar.

It's got to be the going, not the getting there, that's good.

And I dream that something's coming And it's not just in the wind It's more than just tomorrow It's more than where we've been It offers me a promise It's telling me, begin!

It's better sometimes when we don't get to touch our dreams.

Hello my Country I once came to tell everyone your story Your passion was my poetry And your past my most potent glory Your promise was my prayer Your hypocrisy my nightmare And your problems fill my present Are we both going somewhere?

She was married for seven years to a concrete castle king. She said she wanted to learn to play the guitar and to hear her children sing. So I'd show up about once a week in my faded tight-legged jeans with a backlog full of hobo stories and dilapidated dreams.

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon Little boy blue and the man in the moon.

But you can travel on for ten thousand miles, and still stay where you are.

And all the trips you know you missed And all the lips you never kissed Cut through you like a knife. And now you see stretched out before thee Just another story of a life.