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

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
Either
Everyone
Given
Used
Play
Dead

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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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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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.
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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
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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Pointillism takes emotional images, character, etc., and makes them all come together and make a whole that tells a story.
Stephen Sondheim
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Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father. I liked my father a lot, he was a swell fellow, but I didn’t see him very often because my mother was bitter about him and did everything she could to prevent me from seeing him.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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!
Stephen Sondheim
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If I cannot fly, let me sing.
Stephen Sondheim
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I do not hope for what I cannot have! I do not cling to things I cannot keep!
Stephen Sondheim
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Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
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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When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't.
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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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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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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Everyone tells tiny lies, what's important really is the size.
Stephen Sondheim
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I didn't really want to write just lyrics, but I wanted to meet Leonard Bernstein. Music was always the first reason I was writing songs.
Stephen Sondheim