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My mother wanted me off her hands. She was a working woman. She designed clothes, and she was a celebrity collector. It's my mother's ambition to be a celebrity.

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
Clothes
Working
Woman
Mother
Collector
Hands
Collectors
Wanted
Celebrity
Designed
Ambition

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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Art is craft, not inspiration.
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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.
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Only capitalists get photographers.
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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.
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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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Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.
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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 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
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Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
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.
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Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.
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Puzzles are like songs - A good puzzle can give you all the pleasure of being duped that a mystery story can. It has surface innocence, surprise, the revelation of a concealed meaning, and the catharsis of solution.
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Gotta watch out for directors.
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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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My cage has many rooms.
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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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Sometimes I'll ask the book writer to write a monologue, not to be performed, just as if they were notes for the character.
Stephen Sondheim
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I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it.
Stephen Sondheim
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Almost all the shows I've been connected with have been extremely well cast. They're playing the show, not just doing the songs.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim