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If I cannot fly, let me sing.

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
Sing
Singing
Cannot

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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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
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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
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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.
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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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Into the woods you go again You have to every now and then Into the woods, no telling when Be ready for the journey Into the woods, each time you go There's more to learn of what you know.
Stephen Sondheim
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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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Art is craft, not inspiration.
Stephen Sondheim
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On stage, generally speaking, the story is stopped or held back by songs, because that's the convention. Audiences enjoy the song and the singer, that's the point.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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I was raised to be charming, not sincere.
Stephen Sondheim
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You move just a finger, say the slightest word, something's bound to linger-be heard.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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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Dreams are a sweet mistake All dreamers must awake On, then, with the dance No backward glance Or my heart will break Never look back.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim