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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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I would have been a geologist. "

" 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. "

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

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

" When you know your cast well and their strengths and weaknesses, you can start writing for them, just the way Shakespeare wrote for his actors. "

" When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't. "

Stephen Sondheim

Growing Up

Show

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My idea of heaven is not writing. "

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

Stephen Sondheim

Write

Restrictions

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" I happen to like movies and plays about dislikeable people as long as I get to know why they are what they are. "

" On stage, generally speaking, the story is stopped or held back by songs, because that's the convention. Audiences enjoy the song and the singer, that's the point. "

" When the song is part of the action and working as dialogue, even two minutes is way too long. "

" My parents weren't around much, but I assumed everybody's family was the same. I didn't know people had mummies and daddies who would give them milk and cookies after school. I just thought everybody lived on Central Park West and they had a nanny to take care of them. "

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

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

" 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 have, by nature, an analytical mind. "

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