Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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. "

Stephen Sondheim

Woman

Ambition

Clothes

Related Quotes:

" Nice is different than good. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" I have inherited my father's sense of humour about myself. It's a lot more pleasant to make fun of yourself than when someone else does. "

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

Stephen Sondheim

Write

Restrictions

" 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. "

" Every single song I've ever written is sung by a character created by somebody else. Some might have a jaundiced view of love, some don't. But none of these songs is me singing - not a single one. "

" 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. "

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

" 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

" I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged. "

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

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

" I don't find my life that interesting. The shows, maybe. But not me. "

Stephen Sondheim

My Life

Find

" Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead. "

Stephen Sondheim

Dead

Everyone

" I would have been a geologist. "

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

" 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. "

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

" Gotta watch out for directors. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "