Stephen Sondheim Quotes
-
In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.
-
What justifies a character singing one idea for 3 minutes on the screen? I get impatient and want the story to carry on. I don't get impatient in the theatre.
-
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.
-
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.
-
A close-up on screen can say all a song can.
-
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.
-
I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it.
-
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.
-
Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.
-
You have to be submitted for the Pulitzer, and unbeknownst to us, a choral director whom I know had submitted us.
-
Content dictates form and style.
-
Two of the hardest words in the language to rhyme are life and love. Of all words!
-
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.
-
I don't listen to recordings of my songs. I don't avoid it, I just don't go out of my way to do it.
-
Success is like failure, It's how you perceive it, It's what you do with it, not how you achieve it.
-
I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on.
-
If I cannot fly, let me sing.
-
White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge. Bring order to the whole Through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony.
-
My main goal is to tell a story.
-
The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution.
-
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.
-
Musicals are so expensive to put on the stage that you have to have the backing of a corporate, you have to have Universal Studios or Disney or somebody to put in the money.
-
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.
-
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.