Stephen Sondheim Quotes
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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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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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Just remember, Someone is on your side (our side) Someone else is not While we're seeing our side Maybe we forgot: they are not alone. No one is alone.
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I don't like the word 'career'. When somebody says to me, 'oh, you've had such a wonderful career', I think, 'career - that's after you're dead.' I just don't think that way.
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Writing is a form of mischief.
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Having just the vision's no solution, everything depends on execution
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Math and music are intimately related. Not necessarily on a conscious level, but sure.
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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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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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If you told me to write a love song tonight, I'd have a lot of trouble. But if you tell me to write a love song about a girl with a red dress who goes into a bar and is on her fifth martini and is falling off her chair, that's a lot easier, and it makes me free to say anything I want.
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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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You get used to the exact amount of space between lines. You write a word and then you write an alternate word over it. You want enough room so you can read it, so the lines can't be too close.
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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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By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.
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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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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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You have two kinds of shows on Broadway - revivals and the same kind of musicals over and over again, all spectacles. You get your tickets for 'The Lion King' a year in advance, and essentially a family comes as if to a picnic, and they pass on to their children the idea that that's what the theater is - a spectacular musical you see once a year, a stage version of a movie. It has nothing to do with theater at all. It has to do with seeing what is familiar. We live in a recycled culture.
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In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.
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I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.
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It's age. It's a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas. It's an increasing lack of confidence. I'm not the only one. I've checked with other people.
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When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't.
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The concerts you enjoy together/ Neighbors you annoy together/ Children you destroy together,/ That keep marriage in tact.
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I'm sure many writers have these strange, tiny little habits.
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Art is craft, not inspiration.