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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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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
Cling
Suffer
Taken
Suffering
Pain
Things
Love

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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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.
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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 love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.
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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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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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One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.
Stephen Sondheim
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The Tonys ignored West Side Story. The Tonys ignored Gypsy. It's a kind of public humiliation.
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Everyone would like to be on Broadway, cause if a show works, you make a great deal of money and it allows you to write other shows.
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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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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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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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The man i'll never be, Who remembers him?
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
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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Anything that is white is sweet. Anything that is brown is meat. Anything that is grey, don't eat.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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Musicals are — particularly musicals — plays also, but musicals particularly are… the last collaborator is your audience, and so you’ve got to wait ’til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.
Stephen Sondheim
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Let Pirelli's / Miracle Elixir / Activate your roots, sir... Keep it off your boots, sir- / Eats right through. Yes, get Pirelli's! / Use a bottle of it! / Ladies seem to love it... Flies do, too!
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