Stephen Sondheim Quotes
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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.
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The situation's fraught, Fraughter than I thought, With horrible, impossible possibilities!
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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.
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When I listen to my work, I think, what's so inflammatory about it? It's not really that dissonant. A lot of people who used to hate my stuff have come round to it.
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When you know your cast well and their strengths and weaknesses, you can start writing for them, just the way Shakespeare wrote for his actors.
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Only capitalists get photographers.
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Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
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Puzzles are like songs - A good puzzle can give you all the pleasure of being duped that a mystery story can. It has surface innocence, surprise, the revelation of a concealed meaning, and the catharsis of solution.
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My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.
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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.
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Math was my big interest when I was in prep school. I was considering taking math in college, and majoring in it.
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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.
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You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.
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By the time I get through writing a score, I know the book better than the book writer does, because I've examined every word, and questioned the book writer on every word.
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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.
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Any moment, big or small, Is a moment, after all. Seize the moment, skies may fall Any moment.
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In not-for-profit theater, you don't worry so much about how the audience is going to react. You want to make them absorb the piece.
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It's pleasanter to work in the country, where you can wander out among the trees. But I don't get as much work done. In the city you don't want to leave the room because there's all that chaos going on.
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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.
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To wish and wait From day to day Will never keep The wolves away.
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Pointillism takes emotional images, character, etc., and makes them all come together and make a whole that tells a story.
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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.
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Nice is different than good.
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I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.