The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service.

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

Lemuel Ayers had had a huge success producing and designing Kiss Me, Kate. He wanted to produce this as a musical. I got the job. It was a professional score.

You can't have personal investors anymore because it's too expensive, so you have to have corporate investment or a lot of rich people.

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.

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

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