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

Stephen Sondheim

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" Every time one can write a self-deluded song, you are way ahead of the game, way ahead. Self-delusion is the basis of nearly all the great scenes in all the great plays, from 'Oedipus' to 'Hamlet.' "

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

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

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

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

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

Stephen Sondheim

" Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. "

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

" 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

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

" I would have been a geologist. "

Stephen Sondheim

" 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. "

Stephen Sondheim

" 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

" 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

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

Stephen Sondheim