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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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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
Art
Solutions
Concealed
Stories
Songs
Revelation
Give
Meaning
Revelations
Giving
Mystery
Aesthetic
Good
Beauty
Innocence
Duped
Like
Pleasure
Solution
Catharsis
Story
Surface
Puzzle
Song
Surprise
Puzzles

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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When you know your cast well and their strengths and weaknesses, you can start writing for them, just the way Shakespeare wrote for his actors.
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I'm sure many writers have these strange, tiny little habits.
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The man i'll never be, Who remembers him?
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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.
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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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Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.
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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.
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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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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My main goal is to tell a story.
Stephen Sondheim
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I do not hope for what I cannot have! I do not cling to things I cannot keep!
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
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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I've always preferred actors who sing to singers who act in all the shows I've done.
Stephen Sondheim
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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.
Stephen Sondheim
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Now, this one might be a little stringy, but then again, it's fiddle player. That isn't fiddle player, it's piccolo player. How can you tell? It's PIPING hot! Then blow on it first!
Stephen Sondheim
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It's age. It's a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas. It's an increasing lack of confidence. I'm not the only one. I've checked with other people.
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 the moment go. . . . Don't forget it for a moment, though. Just remembering you've had an and when you're back to or makes the or mean more than it did before. . . . Now I understand! And it's time to leave the woods.
Stephen Sondheim