Stephen Sondheim Quotes

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

Stephen Sondheim

• Song
• Comedy
• Revolution
• Stories
• Scene
• Entertainment

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Quotes to Explore

• Tori Amos had a major influence on how I craft words in a song.

  

  Hal Sparks
  • Song
  • Words
  • Influence

• I started getting really interested in comedy when I was in middle school.

  

  Abbi Jacobson
  • School
  • Comedy
  • Middle

• There was a film called 'FM,' and we were asked to do the title song. And I said, 'Does it have to have any specific words?' And they said, 'No, it just has to be about FM radio.' It took a day or two to write.

  

  Walter Becker Steely Dan
  • Song
  • Words
  • Day

• There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.

  

  Beck
  • Different
  • Writing
  • Song

• I actually love doing comedy!

  

  Felicity Jones
  • Comedy
  • Doing
  • Actually

• As in any technological revolution, there will be winners and losers. On balance, everyone will come out ahead, although there will be particular companies that will not be able to cope with a new environment.

  

  Ralph Merkle
  • Environment
  • Balance
  • Revolution

• From the stage, I can reach a large audience, and you learn from being on stage how much a song reaches, what extent of the crowd a song can reach. I write in a way that can reach most of the audience, but I also wanted to have truly intimate moments as well, many intimate moments, more so than the big moments.

  

  Keinan Abdi Warsame
  • Song
  • Moments
  • Learn

• Wayne and Drake, it takes them so long to do a song. I understand why, because they want it to be perfect. But I think I can do a perfect song in 10 minutes.

  

  Young Thug
  • Long
  • Why
  • Think

• I still want to do a romantic comedy or a western or a gritty independent film... there's so much that I still want to do.

  

  Laura Vandervoort
  • Want
  • Comedy
  • Independent

• I used to do a lot of comedy. I don't know what happened. I think it's my face.

  

  Eddie Marsan
  • Think
  • Know
  • Comedy

• The words we use have weight. Whether it's in a conversation with a friend or something said publicly on stage or broadcast. And as performers, we know that because that's why we choose the words we use - that's the whole point of comedy.

  

  Hari Kondabolu
  • Why
  • Words
  • Comedy

• One way in which 'Friends' did resemble 'Seinfeld' is that it really found its audience over the summer of 1995 in reruns. That's when the main title song, 'I'll Be There for You', by the Rembrandts, exploded, too.

  

  Warren Littlefield
  • Friends
  • Song
  • Summer

• Both my grandmothers had upright pianos, and I just knew how to play since I was a child. Nobody taught me. I sounded like a grown-up, and then I learned how to read music. I played so well by ear I could fool the teacher to believe I could play the notes. She'd make the mistake of playing the song once, and I could play it.

  

  Valerie Simpson
  • Up
  • Music
  • Believe

• What you hear about the band is always going to be more disturbing than any particular song.

  

  Daisy Berkowitz
  • Song
  • You
  • Band

• I'd like to do a completely off-the-wall collaboration. I would like one of my songs to be the hook to a rap song. That would be so much fun!

  

  Taylor Swift
  • Fun
  • Song
  • Wall

• The main difference between the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution was that the former was mostly the work of Communist party members and others who wanted to bring about 'socialism with a human face.'

  

  Adam Michnik
  • Work
  • Party
  • Revolution

• I love old books. They tell you stories about their use. You can see where the fingerprints touched the pages as they held the book open. You can see how long they lingered on each page by the finger stains.

  

  Jack Bowman
  • Book
  • Stories
  • See

• I decided I would go to NYU so I could get into the comedy world and have legit housing, and my parents would not have trusted investing in a straight-up comedy career.

  

  Ilana Glazer
  • Up
  • World
  • Career

• Most of the time I'm thinking, I'm glad that scene was improvised.

  

  Larry David
  • Time
  • Thinking
  • Scene

• I watch a happy person doing stand-up, and I go, "What the hell is this? This person's happy!" You need internal conflict. You need the guy to be out of step with society. It's a tool for comedy.

  

  Zach Galifianakis
  • Up
  • Happy
  • Guy

• It is the role of the poet to look at what is happening in the world and to know that quite other things are happening.

  

  V. S. Pritchett
  • World
  • Looks
  • Roles

• I've just got to keep a balanced head and stay focused.

  

  Mike Will Made It
  • Head
  • Focused
  • Balanced

• You know Marques Houston, you know I'm a dancer, I'm a singer, but I wouldn't want to do a movie that I'm a dancer and a singer in. I want to do movies that people can take me more seriously in as an actor, because when you're making that transition, it is tough.

  

  Marques Houston
  • People
  • Movie

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

  

  Stephen Sondheim
  • Song
  • Comedy
  • Revolution