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I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.

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
Songs
Interested
Pieces
Song
Write
Writing
Theatrical
Apart

More quotes by 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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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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To wish and wait From day to day Will never keep The wolves away.
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Success is like failure, It's how you perceive it, It's what you do with it, not how you achieve it.
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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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Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.
Stephen Sondheim
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I was raised to be charming, not sincere.
Stephen Sondheim
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I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.
Stephen Sondheim
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The man i'll never be, Who remembers him?
Stephen Sondheim
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Only capitalists get photographers.
Stephen Sondheim
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Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.
Stephen Sondheim
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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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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
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All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.
Stephen Sondheim
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Oh if life were made of moments Even now and then a bad one--! But if life were only moments, Then you'd never know you had one.
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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Into the woods you go again You have to every now and then Into the woods, no telling when Be ready for the journey Into the woods, each time you go There's more to learn of what you know.
Stephen Sondheim
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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
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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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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