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Lyrics have to be underwritten. That's why poets generally make poor lyric writers because the language is too rich. You get drowned in it.

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
Rich
Underwritten
Poor
Drowned
Language
Lyric
Make
Lyrics
Poets
Generally
Writers
Poet

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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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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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.
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For me it's more fun to find an unexpected moment for a character to sing when you don't expect them to.
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My main goal is to tell a story.
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Sometimes I'll ask the book writer to write a monologue, not to be performed, just as if they were notes for the character.
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Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.
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Slotted spoons don't hold much soup.
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Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.
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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
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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.
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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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Just remember, Someone is on your side (our side) Someone else is not While we're seeing our side Maybe we forgot: they are not alone. No one is alone.
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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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To wish and wait From day to day Will never keep The wolves away.
Stephen Sondheim
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Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.
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After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
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I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.
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Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.
Stephen Sondheim