Stephen Sondheim Quotes
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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.
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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.
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To wish and wait From day to day Will never keep The wolves away.
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Sometimes I'll ask the book writer to write a monologue, not to be performed, just as if they were notes for the character.
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There's something inimical about the camera and song.
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Nice is different than good.
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It should be interesting to see two entirely different ways to treat a story, geared for two entirely different kinds of audience.
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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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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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For me it's more fun to find an unexpected moment for a character to sing when you don't expect them to.
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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.
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I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.
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Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.
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Automobile in America,Chromium steel in America,Wire-spoke wheel in America,Very big deal in America!Immigrant goes to America,Many hellos in America,Nobody knows in America,Puerto Rico's in America!I like the shores of America!Comfort is yours in America!Knobs on the doors in America!Wall-to-wall floors in America!
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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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I've always preferred actors who sing to singers who act in all the shows I've done.
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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!
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So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work.
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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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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.
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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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Math and music are intimately related. Not necessarily on a conscious level, but sure.
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I took piano lessons when I was 6. I didn't want to go on with it. I don't remember being moved by a piece of music.
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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.