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The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service.
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
Stream
Thing
Streams
Service
Censor
Paper
Edit
Consciousness
Edits
Worst
Pencil
Everything
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More quotes by Stephen Sondheim
Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.
Stephen Sondheim
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
I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.
Stephen Sondheim
Let the moment go. . . . Don't forget it for a moment, though. Just remembering you've had an and when you're back to or makes the or mean more than it did before. . . . Now I understand! And it's time to leave the woods.
Stephen Sondheim
You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.
Stephen Sondheim
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
My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.
Stephen Sondheim
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.
Stephen Sondheim
I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it.
Stephen Sondheim
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
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
Slotted spoons don't hold much soup.
Stephen Sondheim
Everyone tells tiny lies, what's important really is the size.
Stephen Sondheim
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
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
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
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.
Stephen Sondheim
I liked my father a lot, but I didn't see him very often because my mother was bitter about him. He remarried, and I used to have to sneak off to see him.
Stephen Sondheim
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
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