Stephen Sondheim Quotes
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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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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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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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The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution.
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The man i'll never be, Who remembers him?
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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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Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.
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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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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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Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.
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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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Gotta watch out for directors.
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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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Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.
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Stay a child while you can be a child.
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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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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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Music is structure out of Chaos
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Oh if life were made of moments Even now and then a bad one--! But if life were only moments, Then you'd never know you had one.
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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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Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.
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I read to see myself in other people's lives.
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Ah, but if you have no expectations, You can never have a disappointment.