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" 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. "

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" 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

Create

Imagination

Meaning

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I have, by nature, an analytical mind. "

" You can't have personal investors anymore because it's too expensive, so you have to have corporate investment or a lot of rich people. "

" 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. "

" My idea of heaven is not writing. "

" Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them. "

" I'm always conscious of what I'm writing, conscious of what the actor may ask me. I have a defense for nearly every line in the song. "

Stephen Sondheim

Actor

Line

" In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies. "

" Everybody faces a blank piece of paper, no matter what they've written or painted or composed before. I can't imagine approaching every single new project with-without doubt. "

" Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten. "

" 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

Laugh

Love

" I was a mathematician by nature, and still am - I just knew I didn't want to be a mathematician. So I decided not to take any mathematics courses. "

" I played the organ when I went to military school, when I was 10. They had a huge organ, the second-largest pipe organ in New York State. I loved all the buttons and the gadgets. I've always been a gadget man. "

" 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. "

" The fact is popular art dates. It grows quaint. How many people feel strongly about Gilbert and Sullivan today compared to those who felt strongly in 1890? "

" I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it. "

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

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

" My mother wanted me off her hands. She was a working woman. She designed clothes, and she was a celebrity collector. It's my mother's ambition to be a celebrity. "

" 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

Live

Theatre

" The movie adaptations of stage musicals that I've seen, without exception, in my opinion don't work. A lot of people would disagree with me. "

Stephen Sondheim

People

Opinion

" I was essentially trained by Oscar Hammerstein to think of songs as one-act plays, to move a song from point A to point B dramatically. "

" I'm a great audience. I cry very easily. I suspend disbelief in two seconds. "

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

" If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sound like speech. At the same time it's got to be a song. "

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

" 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. "

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