Stephen Sondheim Quotes
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Best to take the moment present as a present for the moment. . .
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A close-up on screen can say all a song can.
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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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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.
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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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The Tonys ignored West Side Story. The Tonys ignored Gypsy. It's a kind of public humiliation.
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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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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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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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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.
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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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Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
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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 nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution.
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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 do not hope for what I cannot have! I do not cling to things I cannot keep!
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The only reason to write is from love.
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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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Music is structure out of Chaos
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Almost all the shows I've been connected with have been extremely well cast. They're playing the show, not just doing the songs.
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Every day a little death.
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Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.
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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.