Top 69 Quotes by Stephen Sondheim

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

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

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.'

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

I don't find my life that interesting. The shows, maybe. But not me.

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.

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 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.

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