Stephen Sondheim Quotes - Page 3

Let the moment go. . . . Don't forget it for a moment, though. Just remembering you've had an "and" when you're back to "or" makes the "or" mean more than it did before. . . . Now I understand! And it's time to leave the woods.

Everyone tells tiny lies, what's important really is the size.

Sometimes colleagues in performance are absolutely astonishing.

The situation's fraught, Fraughter than I thought, With horrible, impossible possibilities!

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.

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.

One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there.

After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.

If you told me to write a love song tonight, I'd have a lot of trouble. But if you tell me to write a love song about a girl with a red dress who goes into a bar and is on her fifth martini and is falling off her chair, that's a lot easier, and it makes me free to say anything I want.

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

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

If I got involved with the chat rooms and Facebook and everything - I would probably never leave. That's why I don't do it. I literally don't do it. At all.

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.

Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on.

A close-up on screen can say all a song can.

Deciding what is to be sung and what is not to be sung is really what writing a musical is about.

There's something inimical about the camera and song.

Pointillism takes emotional images, character, etc., and makes them all come together and make a whole that tells a story.

Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.

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.

When you trance out properly, when you're completely in that world, there is no other world, so there's no conflict.

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.

I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.

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.

Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.