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" 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

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" 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. "

Stephen Sondheim

" 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

" So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work. "

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

" Gotta watch out for directors. "

Stephen Sondheim

" 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

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

Stephen Sondheim

" 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. "

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

" My idea of heaven is not writing. "

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

" 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

" I would have been a geologist. "

Stephen Sondheim

" 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. "

Stephen Sondheim

" 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

" 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. "

Stephen Sondheim

" 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

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

" 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

" 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. "

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

" 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

" I was raised to be charming, not sincere. "

Stephen Sondheim

" I don't listen to recordings of my songs. I don't avoid it, I just don't go out of my way to do it. "

Stephen Sondheim

" 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. "

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

" 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. "

Stephen Sondheim

" When I'm writing a song, I try to be the character. "

Stephen Sondheim