Stephen Sondheim Quotes

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.

Almost all the shows I've been connected with have been extremely well cast. They're playing the show, not just doing the songs.

I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.

I've always liked puzzles, since I was a kid. I like party games, silly games. I loved chess. I enjoy jigsaw puzzles, but I'm not particularly visual.

Gotta watch out for directors.

Everyone tells tiny lies, what's important really is the size.

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.

Having just the vision's no solution, everything depends on execution

Oh if life were made of moments Even now and then a bad one--! But if life were only moments, Then you'd never know you had one.

Work is what you do for others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.

Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.

Stay a child while you can be a child.

Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.

You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.

Content dictates form and style.

The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.

Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.

By the time I get through writing a score, I know the book better than the book writer does, because I've examined every word, and questioned the book writer on every word.

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.

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.

I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.

I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it.

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

TODD: The history of the world, my love -- LOVETT: Save a lot of graves, Do a lot of relatives favors! TODD: Is those below serving those up above! LOVETT: Ev'rybody shaves, So there should be plenty of flavors! TODD: How gratifying for once to know BOTH: That those above will serve those down below!

Lyrics have to be underwritten. That's why poets generally make poor lyric writers because the language is too rich. You get drowned in it.

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

Two of the hardest words in the language to rhyme are life and love. Of all words!

The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution.

If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sound like speech. At the same time it's got to be a song.

It's age. It's a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas. It's an increasing lack of confidence. I'm not the only one. I've checked with other people.

No one has ever known me as clearly as you. No one has ever shown me that love allows everything. Not pretty or safe or easy but something I never knew. Love within reason, that isn't love and I learned that from you.

It should be interesting to see two entirely different ways to treat a story, geared for two entirely different kinds of audience.

I took piano lessons when I was 6. I didn't want to go on with it. I don't remember being moved by a piece of music.

On stage, generally speaking, the story is stopped or held back by songs, because that's the convention. Audiences enjoy the song and the singer, that's the point.

White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities.

When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written.

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.

Careful the spell you cast, not just on children. Sometimes the spell may last Past what you can see And turn against you... Careful the tale you tell. That is the spell.

Sometimes colleagues in performance are absolutely astonishing.

When you know your cast well and their strengths and weaknesses, you can start writing for them, just the way Shakespeare wrote for his actors.

It's not so much do what you like as it is that you like what you do.

Pointillism takes emotional images, character, etc., and makes them all come together and make a whole that tells a story.

Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.

If I got involved with the chat rooms and Facebook and everything - I would probably never leave. That's why I don't do it. I literally don't do it. At all.

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

Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood. Others may decieve you - you decide what's good. You decide alone, but no one is alone. People make mistakes. Fathers, mothers, people make mistakes, holding to their own, thinking they're alone. Honor their mistakes. Fight for their mistakes. Witches can be right. Giants can be good. You decide what's right. You decide what's good.

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.

One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there.