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

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
Writing
Every
Way
Fraudulent
Spoken
Writer
Ever
Feels

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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I've always preferred actors who sing to singers who act in all the shows I've done.
Stephen Sondheim
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Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
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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 firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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The more you cling to things, The more you love them, The more the pain you suffer, When they're taken from you.
Stephen Sondheim
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Musicals are — particularly musicals — plays also, but musicals particularly are… the last collaborator is your audience, and so you’ve got to wait ’til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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I like songs that are part of a dramatic texture, and therefore I like the scenes to be active. I wanna follow the story and that means you lean on the actors.
Stephen Sondheim
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When you trance out properly, when you're completely in that world, there is no other world, so there's no conflict.
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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Sometimes colleagues in performance are absolutely astonishing.
Stephen Sondheim
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Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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For anyone approaching any one of the cast albums, if they don't like what they hear, it's not the performer's fault.
Stephen Sondheim
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My cage has many rooms.
Stephen Sondheim
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Take a play that you like but you think is flawed, and see if you can improve it and turn it into a musical. [...] Then make up your own story.
Stephen Sondheim
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You have to be submitted for the Pulitzer, and unbeknownst to us, a choral director whom I know had submitted us.
Stephen Sondheim