Stephen Sondheim Quotes
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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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Writing is a form of mischief.
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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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I've always preferred actors who sing to singers who act in all the shows I've done.
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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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Having just the vision's no solution, everything depends on execution
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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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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 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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If I cannot fly, let me sing.
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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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By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.
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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's not so hard to be married, I've done it three or four times.
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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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I like songs that are part of a dramatic texture, and therefore I like the scenes to be active. I wanna follow the story and that means you lean on the actors.
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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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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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Let the moment go. . . . Don't forget it for a moment, though. Just remembering you've had an "and" when you're back to "or" makes the "or" mean more than it did before. . . . Now I understand! And it's time to leave the woods.
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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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In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.