Stephen Sondheim Quotes

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Stephen Sondheim

Profession : Composer

Birth : March 22, 1930

I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.

Stephen Sondheim

Math and music are intimately related. Not necessarily on a conscious level, but sure.

Stephen Sondheim

Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall.

Stephen Sondheim

Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.

Stephen Sondheim

I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on.

Stephen Sondheim

The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution.

Stephen Sondheim

Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.

Stephen Sondheim

Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you don't feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel you're making art.

Stephen Sondheim

When I'm writing a song, I try to be the character.

Stephen Sondheim

The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.

Stephen Sondheim

If you force yourself to write away from the piano, you come up with more inventive things. If you're too good a piano player, as some composers are, the music may become flavorless and glib. And if you're not a very good pianist, you're limited to the same patterns.

Stephen Sondheim

I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.

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

I'm very opinionated about movie musicals when they're adapted from live shows. You'll sit still for a three-minute song in a theater. But in movies, a glance from someone's eyes will tell you the whole story in a few seconds.

Stephen Sondheim

I think 'lunch' is one of the funniest words in the world.

Stephen Sondheim

If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it.

Stephen Sondheim

Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.

Stephen Sondheim

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

I certainly wanted my name in lights. I wanted my name on a marquee. I wanted recognition on Broadway.

Stephen Sondheim

My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.

Stephen Sondheim