Stephen Sondheim Quotes

Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.

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

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

There's a hole in the world Like a great black pit And the vermin of the world Inhabit it ... And it goes by the name of London.

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.

Sometimes colleagues in performance are absolutely astonishing.

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

The man i'll never be, Who remembers him?

Over a period of time it's been driven home to me that I'm not going to be the most popular writer in the world, so I'm always happy when anything in any way is accepted.

If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it.

Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.

By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.

Gotta watch out for directors.

My cage has many rooms.

The movie adaptations of stage musicals that I've seen, without exception, in my opinion don't work. A lot of people would disagree with me.

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 art of making art, is putting it together.

Content dictates form and style.

Teaching is a sacred profession. And art is a form of teaching.

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

There's something inimical about the camera and song.

What justifies a character singing one idea for 3 minutes on the screen? I get impatient and want the story to carry on. I don't get impatient in the theatre.

It's not so hard to be married, I've done it three or four times.

Am I not sensitive, clever, well-mannered, considerate, passionate, charming, as kind as I'm handsome and heir to a throne?

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

A song is such a short form ... that 'the slightest flaw seems like a mountain.' And so every song needs to be revised 'til it's close to perfection... But achieving perfection takes a lot of energy.

For me it's more fun to find an unexpected moment for a character to sing when you don't expect them to.

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.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

My mother wanted me off her hands. She was a working woman. She designed clothes, and she was a celebrity collector. It's my mother's ambition to be a celebrity.

Ah, but if you have no expectations, You can never have a disappointment.

Into the woods--you have to grope, But that's the way you learn to cope. Into the woods to find there's hope Of getting through the journey.

Writing is a form of mischief.

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

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

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.

If the end is right, it justifies the beans!

I get some flak for and some resistance from colleagues for because I'm interested in storytelling. I mean what I like about songwriting is songs used to tell a story.

You get used to the exact amount of space between lines. You write a word and then you write an alternate word over it. You want enough room so you can read it, so the lines can't be too close.

I liked my father a lot, but I didn't see him very often because my mother was bitter about him. He remarried, and I used to have to sneak off to see him.

I was watching him crawl, Back over the wall-! Then bang! Crash! And the lightning flash! And- well, that's another story, Never mind- Anyway.

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.

Anything that is white is sweet. Anything that is brown is meat. Anything that is grey, don't eat.

Let Pirelli's / Miracle Elixir / Activate your roots, sir... Keep it off your boots, sir- / Eats right through. Yes, get Pirelli's! / Use a bottle of it! / Ladies seem to love it... Flies do, too!

One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.

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

The truth is that I don't like rehearsals. I get embarrassed hearing my own work. I assume that the cast is embarrassed to sing the stuff.

You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, You're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right. I'm the witch. You're the world.

I'm sure many writers have these strange, tiny little habits.

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