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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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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.
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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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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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I like murder mysteries, the Agatha Christie kinds of things where you know that it's all going to be neatly wound up at the end.
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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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I was raised to be charming, not sincere.
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They wanted me to be a concert pianist, because I had a very good right hand, but my left hand's terrible and I hated performing.
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I don't like the word 'career'. When somebody says to me, 'oh, you've had such a wonderful career', I think, 'career - that's after you're dead.' I just don't think that way.
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Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.
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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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When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't.
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I took piano lessons when I was 6. I didn't want to go on with it. I don't remember being moved by a piece of music.
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Lemuel Ayers had had a huge success producing and designing Kiss Me, Kate. He wanted to produce this as a musical. I got the job. It was a professional score.
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There's a hole in the world Like a great black pit And the vermin of the world Inhabit it ... And it goes by the name of London.
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Slotted spoons don't hold much soup.
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I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.
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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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I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it.
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The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service.
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