Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Stephen Sondheim

Image
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
Image
Only capitalists get photographers.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
Art is craft, not inspiration.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
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
Image
I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
On stage, generally speaking, the story is stopped or held back by songs, because that's the convention. Audiences enjoy the song and the singer, that's the point.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
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.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
My main goal is to tell a story.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
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.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
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
Image
My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
I was raised to be charming, not sincere.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
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
Image
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
Image
You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
Sometimes people leave you Halfway through the wood Others may decieve you You decide what's good You decide alone But no one is alone
Stephen Sondheim
Image
My cage has many rooms.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
What justifies a character singing one idea for 3 minutes on the screen? I get impatient and want the story to carry on. I don't get impatient in the theatre.
Stephen Sondheim
Image
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