Stephen sondheim quotes

Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you dont feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel youre making art.

Everyone tells tiny lies, what's important really is the size.

I started listening to classical music when I was in my early teens. Prior to that, I listened to pop records or band records.

I don't like the word 'career'. When somebody says to me, 'oh, you've had such a wonderful career', I think, 'career - that's after you're dead.' I just don't think that way.

You have two kinds of shows on Broadway - revivals and the same kind of musicals over and over again, all spectacles. You get your tickets for 'The Lion King' a year in advance, and essentially a family comes as if to a picnic, and they pass on to their children the idea that that's what the theater is - a spectacular musical you see once a year, a stage version of a movie. It has nothing to do with theater at all. It has to do with seeing what is familiar. We live in a recycled culture.

I'm sure many writers have these strange, tiny little habits.

You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, You're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right. I'm the witch. You're the world.

Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do.

Content dictates form and style.

My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.

Art is craft, not inspiration.

Gotta watch out for directors.

If you told me to write a love song tonight, I'd have a lot of trouble. But if you tell me to write a love song about a girl with a red dress who goes into a bar and is on her fifth martini and is falling off her chair, that's a lot easier, and it makes me free to say anything I want.

The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service.

There's a hole in the world like a great black pit and the vermin of the world inhabit it and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit and it goes by the name of London. At the top of the hole sit the privileged few Making mock of the vermin in the lonely zoo turning beauty to filth and greed... I too have sailed the world and seen its wonders, for the cruelty of men is as wonderous as Peru but there's no place like London!

All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

The more restrictions you have, the easier anything is to write.

There's a hole in the world Like a great black pit And the vermin of the world Inhabit it ... And it goes by the name of London.

If I cannot fly, let me sing.

I liked my father a lot, but I didn't see him very often because my mother was bitter about him. He remarried, and I used to have to sneak off to see him.

He came from a rock band and even though he was not a lead singer, I knew he was musical just from that. I also knew that he was intelligent enough from talking to him, that he would not play this part unless he could handle it vocally. I knew he was not about to get up there and have to have his voice dubbed or come off croaking. So Johnny Depp casted Johnny Depp. I trusted him entirely. I knew that he was no fool and he would only do it if he felt he could handle it. I told him to listen to the score carefully and if you can handle it, fine by me, and I was right.

The last collaborator is your audience ... when the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. Things that seem to work well -- work in a sense of carry the story forward and be integral to the piece -- suddenly become a little less relevant or a little less functional or a little overlong or a little overweight or a little whatever. And so you start reshaping from an audience.

I like neurotic people. I like troubled people. Not that I don't like squared-away people, but I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.

Work is what you do for others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.

It's not so hard to be married, I've done it three or four times.

Pointillism takes emotional images, character, etc., and makes them all come together and make a whole that tells a story.

Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.

You get used to the exact amount of space between lines. You write a word and then you write an alternate word over it. You want enough room so you can read it, so the lines can't be too close.

It's not so much do what you like as it is that you like what you do.

The difference between a cow and a bean is a bean can begin an adventure.

I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra.

The art of making art, is putting it together.

Best to take the moment present as a present for the moment. . .

Anything that is white is sweet. Anything that is brown is meat. Anything that is grey, don't eat.

Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.

Into the woods you go again You have to every now and then Into the woods, no telling when Be ready for the journey Into the woods, each time you go There's more to learn of what you know.

Nice is different than good.

Music is structure out of Chaos

Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.

After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.

Hit songs did not come out of musicals. Pop-rock was creating the hits. There were very few songs that made the charts out of any Broadway musical.

The more you cling to things, The more you love them, The more the pain you suffer, When they're taken from you.

If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sound like speech. At the same time it's got to be a song.

Musicals are — particularly musicals — plays also, but musicals particularly are… the last collaborator is your audience, and so you’ve got to wait ’til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.

I read to see myself in other people's lives.

You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.

I do not hope for what I cannot have! I do not cling to things I cannot keep!

Success is like failure, It's how you perceive it, It's what you do with it, not how you achieve it.

A close-up on screen can say all a song can.

Everyone would like to be on Broadway, cause if a show works, you make a great deal of money and it allows you to write other shows.

Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.

My main goal is to tell a story.

I've always preferred actors who sing to singers who act in all the shows I've done.

By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.

If I got involved with the chat rooms and Facebook and everything - I would probably never leave. That's why I don't do it. I literally don't do it. At all.

Johnny Depp's performance is quite remarkable. Sweeney's desire for revenge and the simmering anger and hurt that he feels carry the story forward, and Johnny finds the most remarkable variety within that narrow set of emotions. The intensity is at a boil all the time and he never drops it. It's real anger.

Over a period of time it's been driven home to me that I'm not going to be the most popular writer in the world, so I'm always happy when anything in any way is accepted.

Let the moment go. . . . Don't forget it for a moment, though. Just remembering you've had an "and" when you're back to "or" makes the "or" mean more than it did before. . . . Now I understand! And it's time to leave the woods.

The truth is that I don't like rehearsals. I get embarrassed hearing my own work. I assume that the cast is embarrassed to sing the stuff.

White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge. Bring order to the whole Through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony.

I get some flak for and some resistance from colleagues for because I'm interested in storytelling. I mean what I like about songwriting is songs used to tell a story.

Oh if life were made of moments Even now and then a bad one--! But if life were only moments, Then you'd never know you had one.

One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.

Having just the vision's no solution, everything depends on execution

Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.

I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.

I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on.

The Tonys ignored West Side Story. The Tonys ignored Gypsy. It's a kind of public humiliation.

Teaching is a sacred profession. And art is a form of teaching.

That's the trouble with awards for a body of work. They always come at both a good time and a wrong time. Good because they tell you what you've been doing was worth the doing and wrong because they ought to come when you're young and excited and hungry for assurance that what you're doing is worth the doing.

White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities.

Every day a little death.

Now, this one might be a little stringy, but then again, it's fiddle player." That isn't fiddle player, it's piccolo player." How can you tell?" It's PIPING hot!" Then blow on it first!

You move just a finger, say the slightest word, something's bound to linger-be heard.

The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.

I've always liked puzzles, since I was a kid. I like party games, silly games. I loved chess. I enjoy jigsaw puzzles, but I'm not particularly visual.

Writing is a form of mischief.

I do not dwell on dreams I know how soon a dream becomes an expectation How can I have expectations? Look at me, No, Captain, Look at me, Look at me!

Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.

No one has ever known me as clearly as you. No one has ever shown me that love allows everything. Not pretty or safe or easy but something I never knew. Love within reason, that isn't love and I learned that from you.

The man i'll never be, Who remembers him?

If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it.

Any moment, big or small, Is a moment, after all. Seize the moment, skies may fall Any moment.

Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall.

When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written.

Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood. Others may decieve you - you decide what's good. You decide alone, but no one is alone. People make mistakes. Fathers, mothers, people make mistakes, holding to their own, thinking they're alone. Honor their mistakes. Fight for their mistakes. Witches can be right. Giants can be good. You decide what's right. You decide what's good.

I'm before him on my knees, and he kisses me He assumes I lose my reason and I do. Men are stupid, men are vain, Love's disgusting, love's insane, A humiliating business-oh how true.

I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it.

Sometimes colleagues in performance are absolutely astonishing.

The concerts you enjoy together/ Neighbors you annoy together/ Children you destroy together,/ That keep marriage in tact.

When you trance out properly, when you're completely in that world, there is no other world, so there's no conflict.

Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.

Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.

Stay a child while you can be a child.

If the end is right, it justifies the beans!

What justifies a character singing one idea for 3 minutes on the screen? I get impatient and want the story to carry on. I don't get impatient in the theatre.

Just remember, Someone is on your side (our side) Someone else is not While we're seeing our side Maybe we forgot: they are not alone. No one is alone.

You can't have personal investors anymore because it's too expensive, so you have to have corporate investment or a lot of rich people.

Lyrics have to be underwritten. That's why poets generally make poor lyric writers because the language is too rich. You get drowned in it.

Dreams are a sweet mistake All dreamers must awake On, then, with the dance No backward glance Or my heart will break Never look back.

Into the woods--you have to grope, But that's the way you learn to cope. Into the woods to find there's hope Of getting through the journey.

TODD: The history of the world, my love -- LOVETT: Save a lot of graves, Do a lot of relatives favors! TODD: Is those below serving those up above! LOVETT: Ev'rybody shaves, So there should be plenty of flavors! TODD: How gratifying for once to know BOTH: That those above will serve those down below!

I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.

Everything depends upon execution; having just a vision is no solution.

Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father. I liked my father a lot, he was a swell fellow, but I didn’t see him very often because my mother was bitter about him and did everything she could to prevent me from seeing him.

Slotted spoons don't hold much soup.

The only reason to write is from love.

Two of the hardest words in the language to rhyme are life and love. Of all words!

Am I not sensitive, clever, well-mannered, considerate, passionate, charming, as kind as I'm handsome and heir to a throne?

For me it's more fun to find an unexpected moment for a character to sing when you don't expect them to.

I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.

Ah, but if you have no expectations, You can never have a disappointment.

Lemuel Ayers had had a huge success producing and designing Kiss Me, Kate. He wanted to produce this as a musical. I got the job. It was a professional score.

One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there.

The situation's fraught, Fraughter than I thought, With horrible, impossible possibilities!

A song is such a short form ... that 'the slightest flaw seems like a mountain.' And so every song needs to be revised 'til it's close to perfection... But achieving perfection takes a lot of energy.

I was raised to be charming, not sincere.

The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution.

I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.

Perpetual anticipation is good for the soul but it's bad for the heart.

My cage has many rooms.

Bit by bit, putting it together... Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art. Every moment makes a contribution, Every little detail plays a part. Having just the vision's no solution, Everything depends on execution, Putting it together, that's what counts.

There's something inimical about the camera and song.

Deciding what is to be sung and what is not to be sung is really what writing a musical is about.

Sometimes people leave you Halfway through the wood Others may decieve you You decide what's good You decide alone But no one is alone