Stephen Sondheim Writing Quotations

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Writing is a form of mischief.

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

Sometimes I'll ask the book writer to write a monologue, not to be performed, just as if they were notes for the character.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Art is craft, not inspiration.

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

The only reason to write is from love.