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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
Good
Beauty
Innocence
Duped
Like
Pleasure
Solution
Catharsis
Story
Surface
Puzzle
Song
Surprise
Puzzles
Art
Solutions
Concealed
Stories
Songs
Revelation
Give
Meaning
Revelations
Giving
Mystery
Aesthetic
More quotes by Stephen Sondheim
The Tonys ignored West Side Story. The Tonys ignored Gypsy. It's a kind of public humiliation.
Stephen Sondheim
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Stephen Sondheim
That's the trouble with awards for a body of work. They always come at both a good time and a wrong time. Good because they tell you what you've been doing was worth the doing and wrong because they ought to come when you're young and excited and hungry for assurance that what you're doing is worth the doing.
Stephen Sondheim
It should be interesting to see two entirely different ways to treat a story, geared for two entirely different kinds of audience.
Stephen Sondheim
The truth is that I don't like rehearsals. I get embarrassed hearing my own work. I assume that the cast is embarrassed to sing the stuff.
Stephen Sondheim
I've always preferred actors who sing to singers who act in all the shows I've done.
Stephen Sondheim
I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.
Stephen Sondheim
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
Success is like failure, It's how you perceive it, It's what you do with it, not how you achieve it.
Stephen Sondheim
I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra.
Stephen Sondheim
Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
Stephen Sondheim
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
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
Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
Stephen Sondheim
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