Stephen Sondheim Quotes

36 Sourced Quotes

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

Stephen Sondheim
Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground, you in mid-air.

Stephen Sondheim
My father is a bastard
My Ma's an S.O.B.
My Grandpa's always plastered
My Grandma pushes tea
My sister wears a moustache
My brother wears a dress
Goodness gracious, that's why I'm a mess.

Stephen Sondheim
A weekend in the country
With the panting
And the yawns
With the crickets and the pheasants
And the orchards and the hay,
With the servants and the peasants,
We'll be laying our plans
While we're playing croquet
For a weekend in the country
So inactive one has to lie down.
A weekend in the country
Where we're twice as upset
As in town.

Stephen Sondheim
In view of her penchant
For something romantic,
De Sade is too trenchant
And Dickens too frantic,
And Stendhal would ruin
The plan of attack
As there isn't much blue in
The Red and the Black.

Stephen Sondheim
Something appealing,
Something appalling,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!

Stephen Sondheim
Of airline meal:
The shiny stuff is tomatoes.
The salad lies in a group.
The curly stuff is potatoes,
The stuff that moves is soup.
Anything that is white is sweet,
Anything that is brown is meat.
Anything that is grey—don't eat.

Stephen Sondheim
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.

Stephen Sondheim
Perpetual anticipation is good for the soul but it's bad for the heart.

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

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

Stephen Sondheim
Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke,
You gotta understand,
It's just our bringin' upke That gets us out of hand.
Our mothers all are junkies,
Our fathers all are drunks,
Golly Moses,
Natcherly we're punks!

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

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

Stephen Sondheim
I like to be in America!
O.K. by me in America!
Ev'rything free in America
For a small fee in America!

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

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

Stephen Sondheim
White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge. Bring order to the whole Through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony.

Stephen Sondheim
It's not so much do what you like as it is that you like what you do.

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
A toast to that invincible bunch
The dinosaurs surviving the crunch
Let's hear it for the ladies who lunch.

Stephen Sondheim
Shepherd's pie and peppered
With genuine shepherds on top.

Stephen Sondheim
Oh if life were made of moments
Even now and then a bad one — !
But if life were only moments,
Then you'd never know you had one.

Stephen Sondheim
Every day a little death,
In the parlor, in the bed,
In the curtains, in the silver,
In the buttons, in the bread.
Every day a little sting,
In the heart and in the head.

Stephen Sondheim
Here's to the ladies who lunch—
Everybody laugh—
Lounging in their caftans and planning a brunch On their own behalf.

Stephen Sondheim