Stephen Sondheim Quotes
After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
Quotes to Explore
-
Tori Amos had a major influence on how I craft words in a song.
-
I started getting really interested in comedy when I was in middle school.
-
You know, if you look all my stuff... If you go back to 'Saturday Night Live,' my stuff always has music, even a bunch of my comedy stuff - like in 'Shrek,' the donkey is always singing. Music is always there.
-
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.
-
There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.
-
I actually love doing comedy!
-
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.
-
Roosevelt was the one who had the vision to change our policy from isolationism to world leadership. That was a terrific revolution. Our country's never been the same since.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I used to do a lot of comedy. I don't know what happened. I think it's my face.
-
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.
-
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.
-
The first song I learned on the guitar was a Kenny Chesney song called 'What I Need to Do'; it was just an easy song to play... and it was really cool to see that come full-circle a few years later and have him record a song that I was part of.
-
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.
-
What you hear about the band is always going to be more disturbing than any particular song.
-
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!
-
Girls are supposed to be feminine and demure. Comedy isn't about that, so you just have to unlearn it. Certain women are so pretty, they can't go weird enough to be funny. You have to be willing to be ugly. I'm lucky my face can look so hideous.
-
When I get married, it will be for life - divorce is not an option.
-
I definitely want to make it very clear to everybody that the educational institution that we have, the school that Will and I have, is not a Scientology school. And that, you know, I know there's been, you know, a lot of buzz around that idea and that it is not my desire to, you know, teach Scientology at all.
-
I have read a number of books, starting with novels, that I particularly liked.
-
My father taught me how to fight when I was 5.
-
After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
