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Ah, but if you have no expectations, You can never have a disappointment.

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
Disappointment
Expectations
Never

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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
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A song is such a short form ... that 'the slightest flaw seems like a mountain.' And so every song needs to be revised 'til it's close to perfection... But achieving perfection takes a lot of energy.
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Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.
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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Pointillism takes emotional images, character, etc., and makes them all come together and make a whole that tells a story.
Stephen Sondheim
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Everyone tells tiny lies, what's important really is the size.
Stephen Sondheim
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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
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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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Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
Stephen Sondheim
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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!
Stephen Sondheim
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In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.
Stephen Sondheim
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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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Any moment, big or small, Is a moment, after all. Seize the moment, skies may fall Any moment.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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What justifies a character singing one idea for 3 minutes on the screen? I get impatient and want the story to carry on. I don't get impatient in the theatre.
Stephen Sondheim
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If I cannot fly, let me sing.
Stephen Sondheim
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Sometimes colleagues in performance are absolutely astonishing.
Stephen Sondheim
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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
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Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.
Stephen Sondheim