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

Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.

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

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.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

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.

I like neurotic people. I like troubled people. Not that I don't like squared-away people, but I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.