Stephen Sondheim Quotes
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Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you dont feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel youre making art.
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Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
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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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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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The concerts you enjoy together/ Neighbors you annoy together/ Children you destroy together,/ That keep marriage in tact.
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Stay a child while you can be a child.
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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.
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Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.
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Hit songs did not come out of musicals. Pop-rock was creating the hits. There were very few songs that made the charts out of any Broadway musical.
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Ah, but if you have no expectations, You can never have a disappointment.
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Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.
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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.
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Work is what you do for others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.
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Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.
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My main goal is to tell a story.
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Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.
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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.
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Music is structure out of Chaos
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The only reason to write is from love.
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A close-up on screen can say all a song can.
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Gotta watch out for directors.
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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.
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The truth is that I don't like rehearsals. I get embarrassed hearing my own work. I assume that the cast is embarrassed to sing the stuff.
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I read to see myself in other people's lives.