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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 . . .
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.
Stephen Sondheim
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I'm sure many writers have these strange, tiny little habits.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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Math and music are intimately related. Not necessarily on a conscious level, but sure.
Stephen Sondheim
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It's not so hard to be married, I've done it three or four times.
Stephen Sondheim
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The art of making art, is putting it together.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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Work is what you do for others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.
Stephen Sondheim
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I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on.
Stephen Sondheim
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Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do.
Stephen Sondheim
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The concerts you enjoy together/ Neighbors you annoy together/ Children you destroy together,/ That keep marriage in tact.
Stephen Sondheim
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My main goal is to tell a story.
Stephen Sondheim
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Stay a child while you can be a child.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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I like murder mysteries, the Agatha Christie kinds of things where you know that it's all going to be neatly wound up at the end.
Stephen Sondheim
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If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sound like speech. At the same time it's got to be a song.
Stephen Sondheim
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Art is craft, not inspiration.
Stephen Sondheim
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Best to take the moment present as a present for the moment. . .
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
