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All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

Stephen Sondheim

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Stephen Sondheim
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: March 22
Author
Composer
Dramaturge
Librettist
Lyricist
Musician
Poet
Screenwriter
Songwriter
New York City
New York
Stephen Joshua Sondheim
Makes
Persist
Best
Performers
Live
Author
Different
Theatre
Something
Role
Paper
Roles
Bring
Persists

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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I don't listen to recordings of my songs. I don't avoid it, I just don't go out of my way to do it.
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Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.
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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.
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Now, this one might be a little stringy, but then again, it's fiddle player. That isn't fiddle player, it's piccolo player. How can you tell? It's PIPING hot! Then blow on it first!
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Sometimes colleagues in performance are absolutely astonishing.
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Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
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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.
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Success is like failure, It's how you perceive it, It's what you do with it, not how you achieve it.
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I do not dwell on dreams I know how soon a dream becomes an expectation How can I have expectations? Look at me, No, Captain, Look at me, Look at me!
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Dreams are a sweet mistake All dreamers must awake On, then, with the dance No backward glance Or my heart will break Never look back.
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There's something inimical about the camera and song.
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They wanted me to be a concert pianist, because I had a very good right hand, but my left hand's terrible and I hated performing.
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.
Stephen Sondheim
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I like murder mysteries, the Agatha Christie kinds of things where you know that it's all going to be neatly wound up at the end.
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I'm before him on my knees, and he kisses me He assumes I lose my reason and I do. Men are stupid, men are vain, Love's disgusting, love's insane, A humiliating business-oh how true.
Stephen Sondheim
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Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.
Stephen Sondheim
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Math and music are intimately related. Not necessarily on a conscious level, but sure.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim