Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Music
Across
Ideas
Laugh
Whole
Theater
Feel
Laughing
Feels
Audience
Much
Getting
Love
Idea
Paramount
Making
Cry

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

Image
TODD: The history of the world, my love -- LOVETT: Save a lot of graves, Do a lot of relatives favors! TODD: Is those below serving those up above! LOVETT: Ev'rybody shaves, So there should be plenty of flavors! TODD: How gratifying for once to know BOTH: That those above will serve those down below!
Stephen Sondheim
Image
For me it's more fun to find an unexpected moment for a character to sing when you don't expect them to.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
I was raised to be charming, not sincere.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
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
Image
Anything that is white is sweet. Anything that is brown is meat. Anything that is grey, don't eat.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
When you trance out properly, when you're completely in that world, there is no other world, so there's no conflict.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
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
Image
White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge. Bring order to the whole Through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
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
Image
Any moment, big or small, Is a moment, after all. Seize the moment, skies may fall Any moment.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
It's pleasanter to work in the country, where you can wander out among the trees. But I don't get as much work done. In the city you don't want to leave the room because there's all that chaos going on.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
No one has ever known me as clearly as you. No one has ever shown me that love allows everything. Not pretty or safe or easy but something I never knew. Love within reason, that isn't love and I learned that from you.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
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
Image
One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
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
Image
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
Image
In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.
Stephen Sondheim