Stephen Sondheim Quotes
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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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Nice is different than good.
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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'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.
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So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work.
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Writing is a form of mischief.
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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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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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On stage, generally speaking, the story is stopped or held back by songs, because that's the convention. Audiences enjoy the song and the singer, that's the point.
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I didn't really want to write just lyrics, but I wanted to meet Leonard Bernstein. Music was always the first reason I was writing songs.
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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.
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My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.
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I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.
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I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.
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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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They all deserve to die. Even you, Mrs. Lovett Even I. Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief For the rest of us death would be relief.
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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!
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The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.
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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.
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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!
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The more you cling to things, The more you love them, The more the pain you suffer, When they're taken from you.
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There's something inimical about the camera and song.
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Deciding what is to be sung and what is not to be sung is really what writing a musical is about.
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White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge. Bring order to the whole Through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony.