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" 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

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

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" Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on. "

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

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

" I would have been a geologist. "

Stephen Sondheim

" There's something inimical about the camera and song. "

Stephen Sondheim

" 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

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

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

" Gotta watch out for directors. "

Stephen Sondheim

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

" Nice is different than good. "

Stephen Sondheim

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

Stephen Sondheim

" 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

" 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? "

Stephen Sondheim

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

Stephen Sondheim

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

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

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

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

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

Stephen Sondheim