Stephen Sondheim famous quotes

The only reason to write is from love.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Writing #Reason

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.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Rooms

Success is like failure, It's how you perceive it, It's what you do with it, not how you achieve it.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Achieve #Perceive

I love computers. I love writing on them. I love gadgetry. The thing is: I am a slow reader. So, if I am going to get my work done, I read, like, a newspaper and that's it. If I got into websites and the internet, I wouldn't get any work done.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Writing #Done #Computer

The art of making art, is putting it together....
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Art #Together #Art Is

If I cannot fly, let me sing.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Singing #Let Me

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

#Communication #Would Be #Concerts

Bit by bit, putting it together... Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art. Every moment makes a contribution, Every little detail plays a part. Having just the vision's no solution, Everything depends on execution, Putting it together, that's what counts.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Art #Play #Vision

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

#Art #Order #Racist

Work is what you do for others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Art #Work #Art Is

Everything depends upon execution; having just a vision is no solution.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Inspirational #Vision #Execution

The last collaborator is your audience ... when the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. Things that seem to work well -- work in a sense of carry the story forward and be integral to the piece -- suddenly become a little less relevant or a little less functional or a little overlong or a little overweight or a little whatever. And so you start reshaping from an audience.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Pieces #Littles #Lasts

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

#People #Surface #Beneath The Surface

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

#Writing #Greed #Not Good Enough

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

#Moments #Now And Then #Made

Art is craft, not inspiration.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Art #Inspiration #Writing

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

#Ideas #Laughing #Cry

Musicals are plays, but the last collaborator is your audience, so you've got to wait 'til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Play #Waiting #Lasts

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

#Breathing #Needs

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

#Want #Needs #May

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

#Writing #Paper #Consciousness

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

#Thinking #Views #People

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

#Adventure #Differences #Cows

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

#Men #Remember

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.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Time #Mean #Woods

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

#People #Sometimes #Producers

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

#Nice #Gambling #Idaho

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

#Theatre #Roles #Paper

By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Flaws #Young #Flawed

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

#Song

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

#Song #Stories #Revolution

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

#Inspirational #Moving On #Mistake

Gotta watch out for directors.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Directors #Watches

When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Temperature #Audience

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

#Wall #Moving #Mean

Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father during all those many days, and weeks and months when I didn't see my own father.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Father #Oscars #Months

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.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Believe #Giving #Acting

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

#Language #Rich #Poet

Stay a child while you can be a child.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Children

Slotted spoons don't hold much soup...
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Spoons #Soup

Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you dont 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 youre making art.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Art #Fall #Play

You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, You're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right. I'm the witch. You're the world.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Nice #World #Witch

Swing your razor wide! Sweeney, hold it to the skies!
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Sky #Swings #Razors

Automobile in America,Chromium steel in America,Wire-spoke wheel in America,Very big deal in America!Immigrant goes to America,Many hellos in America,Nobody knows in America,Puerto Rico's in America!I like the shores of America!Comfort is yours in America!Knobs on the doors in America!Wall-to-wall floors in America!
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Wall #Doors #America

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

#Home #World #Way

Having just the vision's no solution, everything depends on execution
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Vision #Execution #Solutions

Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.
-- Stephen Sondheim

There's a hole in the world Like a great black pit And the vermin of the world Inhabit it ... And it goes by the name of London.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Names #Black #Pits

Any moment, big or small, Is a moment, after all. Seize the moment, skies may fall Any moment.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Fall #Sky #May

My cage has many rooms.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Rooms #Cages

To wish and wait From day to day Will never keep The wolves away.
-- Stephen Sondheim

#Waiting #Wish