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

I don't like the word 'career'. When somebody says to me, 'oh, you've had such a wonderful career', I think, 'career - that's after you're dead.' I just don't think that way.

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.

I like songs that are part of a dramatic texture, and therefore I like the scenes to be active. I wanna follow the story and that means you lean on the actors.

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

Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do.

Sometimes colleagues in performance are absolutely astonishing.