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I was raised to be charming, not sincere.

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
Charming
Sincere
Raised

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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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.
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Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.
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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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You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.
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It's not so much do what you like as it is that you like what you do.
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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.
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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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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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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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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.
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Lemuel Ayers had had a huge success producing and designing Kiss Me, Kate. He wanted to produce this as a musical. I got the job. It was a professional score.
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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.
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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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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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With videotaping, on the second generation you're already losing some of the freshness.
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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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.
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