Stephen Sondheim Quotes
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Two of the hardest words in the language to rhyme are life and love. Of all words!
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Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.
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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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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 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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Johnny Depp's performance is quite remarkable. Sweeney's desire for revenge and the simmering anger and hurt that he feels carry the story forward, and Johnny finds the most remarkable variety within that narrow set of emotions. The intensity is at a boil all the time and he never drops it. It's real anger.
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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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I'm sure many writers have these strange, tiny little habits.
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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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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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You have to be submitted for the Pulitzer, and unbeknownst to us, a choral director whom I know had submitted us.
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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.
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Success is like failure, It's how you perceive it, It's what you do with it, not how you achieve it.
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Can't we just pursue our lives With our children and our wives Till that happy day arrives How do you ignore All the witches All the curses All the wolves, all the lies The false hopes, the goodbyes . . .
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I started listening to classical music when I was in my early teens. Prior to that, I listened to pop records or band records.
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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 it goes by the name of London.
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A song is such a short form ... that 'the slightest flaw seems like a mountain.' And so every song needs to be revised 'til it's close to perfection... But achieving perfection takes a lot of energy.
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I do not hope for what I cannot have! I do not cling to things I cannot keep!
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Careful the spell you cast, not just on children. Sometimes the spell may last Past what you can see And turn against you... Careful the tale you tell. That is the spell.
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Into the woods--you have to grope, But that's the way you learn to cope. Into the woods to find there's hope Of getting through the journey.
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Ah, but if you have no expectations, You can never have a disappointment.
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The man i'll never be, Who remembers him?
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Work is what you do for others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.
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By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.