Stephen Sondheim quotes:

Automobile in America,Chromium steel in America,Wire-spoke wheel in America,Very big deal in America!Immigrant goes to America,Many hellos in America,Nobody knows in America,Puerto Rico's in America!I like the shores of America!Comfort is yours in America!Knobs on the doors in America!Wall-to-wall floors in America!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

If you force yourself to write away from the piano, you come up with more inventive things. If you're too good a piano player, as some composers are, the music may become flavorless and glib. And if you're not a very good pianist, you're limited to the same patterns.

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.

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

Johnny Depp's performance is quite remarkable. Sweeney's desire for revenge and the simmering anger and hurt that he feels carry the story forward, and Johnny finds the most remarkable variety within that narrow set of emotions. The intensity is at a boil all the time and he never drops it. It's real anger.

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

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.

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.

I like murder mysteries, the Agatha Christie kinds of things where you know that it's all going to be neatly wound up at the end.

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.

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

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

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.

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

You get used to the exact amount of space between lines. You write a word and then you write an alternate word over it. You want enough room so you can read it, so the lines can't be too close.

Hit songs did not come out of musicals. Pop-rock was creating the hits. There were very few songs that made the charts out of any Broadway musical.

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

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

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

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.

My idea of heaven is not writing.

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

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.

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

Gotta watch out for directors.

My parents got divorced and military school gave me a structure. A lot of kids my age were children of divorced parents. They didn't know what to do with the kids.

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

Let Pirelli's / Miracle Elixir / Activate your roots, sir... Keep it off your boots, sir- / Eats right through. Yes, get Pirelli's! / Use a bottle of it! / Ladies seem to love it... Flies do, too!

If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it.

I've always liked puzzles, since I was a kid. I like party games, silly games. I loved chess. I enjoy jigsaw puzzles, but I'm not particularly visual.

It's age. It's a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas. It's an increasing lack of confidence. I'm not the only one. I've checked with other people.

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

Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.

Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood. Others may decieve you - you decide what's good. You decide alone, but no one is alone. People make mistakes. Fathers, mothers, people make mistakes, holding to their own, thinking they're alone. Honor their mistakes. Fight for their mistakes. Witches can be right. Giants can be good. You decide what's right. You decide what's good.

I took piano lessons when I was 6. I didn't want to go on with it. I don't remember being moved by a piece of music.

Math was my big interest when I was in prep school. I was considering taking math in college, and majoring in it.

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

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

TODD:The history of the world, my love --LOVETT:Save a lot of graves,Do a lot of relatives favors!TODD:Is those below serving those up above!LOVETT:Ev'rybody shaves,So there should be plenty of flavors!TODD:How gratifying for once to knowBOTH:That those above will serve those down below!

A folktale without a moral is merely a whimsy.

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

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.'

If I cannot fly, let me sing.

Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do.

Swing your razor wide! Sweeney, hold it to the skies!

Let the moment go. . . . Don't forget it for a moment, though. Just remembering you've had an "and" when you're back to "or" makes the "or" mean more than it did before. . . . Now I understand! And it's time to leave the woods.

For me it's more fun to find an unexpected moment for a character to sing when you don't expect them to.

Musicals are so expensive to put on the stage that you have to have the backing of a corporate, you have to have Universal Studios or Disney or somebody to put in the money.

Am I not sensitive, clever, well-mannered, considerate, passionate, charming, as kind as I'm handsome and heir to a throne?

The Tonys ignored West Side Story. The Tonys ignored Gypsy. It's a kind of public humiliation.

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.

I'm very opinionated about movie musicals when they're adapted from live shows. You'll sit still for a three-minute song in a theater. But in movies, a glance from someone's eyes will tell you the whole story in a few seconds.

I have, by nature, an analytical mind.

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.

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

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

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.

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

I would have been a geologist.

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?

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

A song is such a short form ... that 'the slightest flaw seems like a mountain.' And so every song needs to be revised 'til it's close to perfection... But achieving perfection takes a lot of energy.

Ah, but if you have no expectations, You can never have a disappointment.

Almost all the shows I've been connected with have been extremely well cast. They're playing the show, not just doing the songs.

Any moment, big or small, Is a moment, after all. Seize the moment, skies may fall Any moment.

Anything that is white is sweet. Anything that is brown is meat. Anything that is grey, don't eat.

Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.

Art is craft, not inspiration.

Best to take the moment present as a present for the moment. . .

Bit by bit, putting it together... Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art. Every moment makes a contribution, Every little detail plays a part. Having just the vision's no solution, Everything depends on execution, Putting it together, that's what counts.

By the time I get through writing a score, I know the book better than the book writer does, because I've examined every word, and questioned the book writer on every word.

Can't we just pursue our lives With our children and our wives Till that happy day arrives How do you ignore All the witches All the curses All the wolves, all the lies The false hopes, the goodbyes . . .

Careful the spell you cast, not just on children. Sometimes the spell may last Past what you can see And turn against you... Careful the tale you tell. That is the spell.

Content dictates form and style.

Deciding what is to be sung and what is not to be sung is really what writing a musical is about.

Dreams are a sweet mistake All dreamers must awake.. On then with the dance No backward glance Or my heart will break Never look back NEVER LOOK BACK. . . . Follies

Every day a little death.

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

Everyone tells tiny lies, what's important really is the size.

Everyone would like to be on Broadway, cause if a show works, you make a great deal of money and it allows you to write other shows.

Everything depends upon execution; having just a vision is no solution.

For anyone approaching any one of the cast albums, if they don't like what they hear, it's not the performer's fault.

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

Having just the vision's no solution, everything depends on execution

He came from a rock band and even though he was not a lead singer, I knew he was musical just from that. I also knew that he was intelligent enough from talking to him, that he would not play this part unless he could handle it vocally. I knew he was not about to get up there and have to have his voice dubbed or come off croaking. So Johnny Depp casted Johnny Depp. I trusted him entirely. I knew that he was no fool and he would only do it if he felt he could handle it. I told him to listen to the score carefully and if you can handle it, fine by me, and I was right.

I didn't really want to write just lyrics, but I wanted to meet Leonard Bernstein. Music was always the first reason I was writing songs.

I do not dwell on dreams I know how soon a dream becomes an expectation How can I have expectations? Look at me, No, Captain, Look at me, Look at me!

I do not hope for what I cannot have! I do not cling to things I cannot keep!

I don't like the word 'career'. When somebody says to me, 'oh, you've had such a wonderful career', I think, 'career - that's after you're dead.' I just don't think that way.

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.

I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.

I get some flak for and some resistance from colleagues for because I'm interested in storytelling. I mean what I like about songwriting is songs used to tell a story.

I like neurotic people. I like troubled people. Not that I don't like squared-away people, but I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.

I like songs that are part of a dramatic texture, and therefore I like the scenes to be active. I wanna follow the story and that means you lean on the actors.

I liked my father a lot, but I didn't see him very often because my mother was bitter about him. He remarried, and I used to have to sneak off to see him.

I love computers. I love writing on them. I love gadgetry. The thing is: I am a slow reader. So, if I am going to get my work done, I read, like, a newspaper and that's it. If I got into websites and the internet, I wouldn't get any work done.

I read to see myself in other people's lives.

I started listening to classical music when I was in my early teens. Prior to that, I listened to pop records or band records.

I was never much of a reader. I'm a slow reader, which is unusual, because I'm so into language and I love words so much. But it's hard for me to read.

I was raised to be charming, not sincere.

I was watching him crawl, Back over the wall-! Then bang! Crash! And the lightning flash! And- well, that's another story, Never mind- Anyway...

If I got involved with the chat rooms and Facebook and everything - I would probably never leave. That's why I don't do it. I literally don't do it. At all.

If the end is right, it justifies the beans!

If you told me to write a love song tonight, I'd have a lot of trouble. But if you tell me to write a love song about a girl with a red dress who goes into a bar and is on her fifth martini and is falling off her chair, that's a lot easier, and it makes me free to say anything I want.

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.

I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it.

I'm before him on my knees, and he kisses me He assumes I lose my reason and I do. Men are stupid, men are vain, Love's disgusting, love's insane, A humiliating business-oh how true.