Stephen Sondheim Quotes - Page 2

I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.

Nice is different than good.

Music is structure out of Chaos

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.

Writing is a form of mischief.

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.

You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.

Two of the hardest words in the language to rhyme are life and love. Of all words!

Stay a child while you can be a child.

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.

Perpetual anticipation is good for the soul but it's bad for the heart.

The difference between a cow and a bean is a bean can begin an adventure.

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

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.

Content dictates form and style.

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.

White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge. Bring order to the whole Through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony.

The more restrictions you have, the easier anything is to write.

Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do.

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.

The man i'll never be, Who remembers him?

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.

The more you cling to things, The more you love them, The more the pain you suffer, When they're taken from you.

I read to see myself in other people's lives.

I've always preferred actors who sing to singers who act in all the shows I've done.