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You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.

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
Keep
May
Better
Need
Needs

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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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.
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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Sometimes I'll ask the book writer to write a monologue, not to be performed, just as if they were notes for the character.
Stephen Sondheim
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I've always liked puzzles, since I was a kid. I like party games, silly games. I loved chess. I enjoy jigsaw puzzles, but I'm not particularly visual.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
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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Just remember, Someone is on your side (our side) Someone else is not While we're seeing our side Maybe we forgot: they are not alone. No one is alone.
Stephen Sondheim
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Slotted spoons don't hold much soup.
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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I was watching him crawl, Back over the wall-! Then bang! Crash! And the lightning flash! And- well, that's another story, Never mind- Anyway.
Stephen Sondheim
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Ah, but if you have no expectations, You can never have a disappointment.
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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Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.
Stephen Sondheim
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Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.
Stephen Sondheim
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My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.
Stephen Sondheim
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Into the woods--you have to grope, But that's the way you learn to cope. Into the woods to find there's hope Of getting through the journey.
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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Almost all the shows I've been connected with have been extremely well cast. They're playing the show, not just doing the songs.
Stephen Sondheim
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The Tonys ignored West Side Story. The Tonys ignored Gypsy. It's a kind of public humiliation.
Stephen Sondheim
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There's something inimical about the camera and song.
Stephen Sondheim