Quote

Now, this one might be a little stringy, but then again, it's fiddle player. That isn't fiddle player, it's piccolo player. How can you tell? It's PIPING hot! Then blow on it first!

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
Littles
Little
Stringy
Might
Piping
Firsts
Fiddle
First
Hot
Blow
Player
Tell

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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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.
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Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.
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Sometimes colleagues in performance are absolutely astonishing.
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When you trance out properly, when you're completely in that world, there is no other world, so there's no conflict.
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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.
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Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.
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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.
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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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It should be interesting to see two entirely different ways to treat a story, geared for two entirely different kinds of audience.
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Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.
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White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities.
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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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Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I like neurotic people. I like troubled people. Not that I don't like squared-away people, but I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.
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I do not hope for what I cannot have! I do not cling to things I cannot keep!
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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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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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