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.

A close-up on screen can say all a song can.

In not-for-profit theater, you don't worry so much about how the audience is going to react. You want to make them absorb the piece.

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

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.

The more restrictions you have, the easier anything is to write.

That's the trouble with awards for a body of work. They always come at both a good time and a wrong time. Good because they tell you what you've been doing was worth the doing and wrong because they ought to come when you're young and excited and hungry for assurance that what you're doing is worth the doing.