They all deserve to die. Even you, Mrs. Lovett Even I. Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief For the rest of us death would be relief.

The more you cling to things, The more you love them, The more the pain you suffer, When they're taken from you.

You have two kinds of shows on Broadway - revivals and the same kind of musicals over and over again, all spectacles. You get your tickets for 'The Lion King' a year in advance, and essentially a family comes as if to a picnic, and they pass on to their children the idea that that's what the theater is - a spectacular musical you see once a year, a stage version of a movie. It has nothing to do with theater at all. It has to do with seeing what is familiar. We live in a recycled culture.

He came from a rock band and even though he was not a lead singer, I knew he was musical just from that. I also knew that he was intelligent enough from talking to him, that he would not play this part unless he could handle it vocally. I knew he was not about to get up there and have to have his voice dubbed or come off croaking. So Johnny Depp casted Johnny Depp. I trusted him entirely. I knew that he was no fool and he would only do it if he felt he could handle it. I told him to listen to the score carefully and if you can handle it, fine by me, and I was right.

I read to see myself in other people's lives.

I was never much of a reader. I'm a slow reader, which is unusual, because I'm so into language and I love words so much. But it's hard for me to read.

Writing is a form of mischief.