A biography for Stephen Sondheimhasn’t been written yet.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Gotta watch out for directors.”
“I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on.”
“In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.”
“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 don't find my life that interesting. The shows, maybe. But not me.”
“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 happen to like movies and plays about dislikeable people as long as I get to know why they are what they are.”
“Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.”
“Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.”
“My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.”
“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.”
“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.”
“So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work.”
“Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father during all those many days, and weeks and months when I didn't see my own father.”
“I have, by nature, an analytical mind.”
“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.”
“Math and music are intimately related. Not necessarily on a conscious level, but sure.”