Stephen Sondheim Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational Stephen Sondheim quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them. — Stephen Sondheim

I was essentially trained by Oscar Hammerstein to think of songs as one-act plays, to move a song from point A to point B dramatically. — Stephen Sondheim

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

When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. — Stephen Sondheim

I have inherited my father's sense of humour about myself. It's a lot more pleasant to make fun of yourself than when someone else does. — Stephen Sondheim

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. — Stephen Sondheim

Sometimes I'll ask the book writer to write a monologue, not to be performed, just as if they were notes for the character. — Stephen Sondheim

Success is like failure, It's how you perceive it, It's what you do with it, not how you achieve it. — Stephen Sondheim

I didn't really want to write just lyrics, but I wanted to meet Leonard Bernstein. Music was always the first reason I was writing songs. — Stephen Sondheim

I started listening to classical music when I was in my early teens. Prior to that, I listened to pop records or band records. — Stephen Sondheim

Art is craft, not inspiration. — Stephen Sondheim

Work is what you do for others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself. — Stephen Sondheim

I don't find my life that interesting. The shows, maybe. But not me. — Stephen Sondheim

If the end is right, it justifies the beans! — Stephen Sondheim

Perpetual anticipation is good for the soul but it's bad for the heart. — Stephen Sondheim

I saw "Follies" again at thirty, and you know, I had this great appreciation for [Stephen] Sondheim's brilliance, his lyrics. — Charles Busch

You have to be submitted for the Pulitzer, and unbeknownst to us, a choral director whom I know had submitted us. — Stephen Sondheim

I compare Stephen Sondheim with humor, because humor is unanalyzable. You can't analyze humor. You just have to get through it. — Elaine Stritch

Stephen Sondheim I am in awe of. — Christoph Waltz

Everyone tells tiny lies, what's important really is the size. — Stephen Sondheim

The situation's fraught, Fraughter than I thought, With horrible, impossible possibilities! — Stephen Sondheim

I do not dwell on dreams I know how soon a dream becomes an expectation How can I have expectations? Look at me, No, Captain, Look at me, Look at me! — Stephen Sondheim

At last, my arm is complete again — Stephen Sondheim

Best to take the moment present as a present for the moment ... — Stephen Sondheim

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. — Stephen Sondheim

Some of us don't like the way you've been telling it. — Stephen Sondheim

It's your father's fault that the curse got placed and the place got cursed in the first place. — Stephen Sondheim

Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star. — Stephen Sondheim

Music is structure out of Chaos — Stephen Sondheim

Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor. — Stephen Sondheim

To wish and wait From day to day Will never keep The wolves away. — Stephen Sondheim

Only capitalists get photographers. — Stephen Sondheim

I would have been a geologist. — Stephen Sondheim

My idea of heaven is not writing. — Stephen Sondheim

Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new. Give us more to see ... — Stephen Sondheim

I think Stephen Sondheim is a - and I hardly ever use this word - but this is as close as it gets to a genius. — Christoph Waltz

When you trance out properly, when you're completely in that world, there is no other world, so there's no conflict. — Stephen Sondheim

I'm a devotee of Stephen Sondheim. I think he's a genius. — Kenneth Branagh

When I'm writing a song, I try to be the character. — Stephen Sondheim

I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs. — Stephen Sondheim

I am writing better Stephen Sondheim songs than even Stephen Sondheim is writing. — Pete Townshend

The Tonys ignored West Side Story. The Tonys ignored Gypsy. It's a kind of public humiliation. — Stephen Sondheim

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

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten. — Stephen Sondheim

Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. — Stephen Sondheim

The concerts you enjoy together/ Neighbors you annoy together/ Children you destroy together,/ That keep marriage in tact. — Stephen Sondheim

You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, You're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right. I'm the witch. You're the world. — Stephen Sondheim

The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution. — Stephen Sondheim

The difference between a cow and a bean is a bean can begin an adventure. — Stephen Sondheim

They wanted me to be a concert pianist, because I had a very good right hand, but my left hand's terrible and I hated performing. — Stephen Sondheim

The art of making art, is putting it together ... — Stephen Sondheim

Having just the vision's no solution, everything depends on execution — Stephen Sondheim

The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them. — Stephen Sondheim

Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father during all those many days, and weeks and months when I didn't see my own father. — Stephen Sondheim

I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged. — Stephen Sondheim

Swing your razor wide! Sweeney, hold it to the skies! — Stephen Sondheim

You move just a finger, say the slightest word, something's bound to linger-be heard. — Stephen Sondheim

I'm a great audience. I cry very easily. I suspend disbelief in two seconds. — Stephen Sondheim

Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything. — Stephen Sondheim

The only reason to write is from love. — Stephen Sondheim

Math was my big interest when I was in prep school. I was considering taking math in college, and majoring in it. — Stephen Sondheim

My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other. — Stephen Sondheim

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. — Stephen Sondheim

Deciding what is to be sung and what is not to be sung is really what writing a musical is about. — Stephen Sondheim

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

Two of the hardest words in the language to rhyme are life and love. Of all words! — Stephen Sondheim

A folktale without a moral is merely a whimsy. — Stephen Sondheim

We lose things.
And then we choose things.
And there are Louis's
And there are Georges-
Well, Louis's
And George. — Stephen Sondheim

My main goal is to tell a story. — Stephen Sondheim

Gotta watch out for directors. — Stephen Sondheim

White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge. Bring order to the whole Through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony. — Stephen Sondheim

Take a play that you like but you think is flawed, and see if you can improve it and turn it into a musical. Then make up your own story. — Stephen Sondheim

By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur. — Stephen Sondheim

Anything that is white is sweet.
Anything that is brown is meat.
Anything that is grey, don't eat. — Stephen Sondheim

It's not so much do what you like as it is that you like what you do. — Stephen Sondheim

Almost all the shows I've been connected with have been extremely well cast. They're playing the show, not just doing the songs. — Stephen Sondheim

I've always preferred actors who sing to singers who act in all the shows I've done. — Stephen Sondheim

Content dictates form and style. — Stephen Sondheim

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

White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities. — Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim said : If you know where you're going, you've gone. Move on. — Jennifer Crusie

There's something inimical about the camera and song. — Stephen Sondheim

Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on. — Stephen Sondheim

Everything depends upon execution; having just a vision is no solution. — Stephen Sondheim

In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies. — Stephen Sondheim

I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it. — Stephen Sondheim

Children can only grow from something you love to something you lose. — Stephen Sondheim

There's a hole in the world like a big black pit who are filled with people who are filled with shit. — Stephen Sondheim

I'm sure many writers have these strange, tiny little habits. — Stephen Sondheim

For anyone approaching any one of the cast albums, if they don't like what they hear, it's not the performer's fault. — Stephen Sondheim

Am I not sensitive, clever, well-mannered, considerate, passionate, charming, as kind as I'm handsome and heir to a throne? — Stephen Sondheim

How many times do you get to be 35?
Eleven — Stephen Sondheim

So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work. — Stephen Sondheim

I have, by nature, an analytical mind. — Stephen Sondheim

My cage has many rooms. — Stephen Sondheim

I happen to like movies and plays about dislikeable people as long as I get to know why they are what they are. — Stephen Sondheim

Stay a child while you can be a child. — Stephen Sondheim

I certainly wanted my name in lights. I wanted my name on a marquee. I wanted recognition on Broadway. — Stephen Sondheim

I was a mathematician by nature, and still am - I just knew I didn't want to be a mathematician. So I decided not to take any mathematics courses. — Stephen Sondheim

If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it. — Stephen Sondheim