Great Throughts Treasury

"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!"

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

"Like a great black pit and the vermin of the world inhabit it... and it goes by the name of London."

"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."

"Music blows lyrics up very quickly, and suddenly they become more than art. They become pompous and they become self-conscious ... I firmly believe that lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you not only have the music, but you've got costume, story, acting, orchestra. There's a lot to take in."

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

"Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten."

"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."

"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."

"My cage has many rooms."

"Nice is different than good."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"One of my favorite songs is "Something's Coming". It was written in less than 48 hours during early West Side Story rehearsals. The actor playing Tony just didn't have the kind of "weight" that made you want to follow his adventures. But he could sing a 2/4 song better than anybody. So I wrote the song thinking it would give him an opportunity to establish himself on the stage. And give him confidence. And then he would give the rest of the company confidence ... and it worked."

"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."

"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."

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

"So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work."

"Slotted spoons don't hold much soup..."

"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."

"Over a period of time it's been driven home to me that I'm not going to be the most popular writer in the world, so I'm always happy when anything in any way is accepted."

"Stay a child while you can be a child."

"Regarding the song Sunday from Sunday in the Park with George: Studying the painting, I realized that these people don’t know… they’re going to be immortal… and when I wrote the word forever… I cried."

"The difference between a cow and a bean is a bean can begin an adventure."

"The concerts you enjoy together neighbors you annoy together children you destroy together that make marriage a joy"

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

"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?"

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

"The last collaborator is your audience ... when the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. Things that seem to work well — work in a sense of carry the story forward and be integral to the piece — suddenly become a little less relevant or a little less functional or a little overlong or a little overweight or a little whatever. And so you start reshaping from an audience."

"The man I'll never be, who remembers him?"

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

"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."

"The song "I'm Losing my Mind" from Follies is a torch song. It started out as a total imitation of Gershwin's "The Man I Love". I knew I wanted a particular kind of song there. And I knew that I wanted to imitate a certain style and feel. So if I was going to imitate, I might as well imitate the best."

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

"The only reason to write is to write for love. Write for passion. If you have the privilege of being able to write, then don't do it for any other reason."

"There's something inimical about the camera and song."

"They all deserve to die. Even you, Mrs. Lovett, eEven I."

"They hear drums, we hear music."

"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."

"To wish and wait from day to day will never keep the wolves away."

"Two-thirds of all American theater is about yearning for a connection.... The stage is home to a whole lot of yearning."

"There's a hole in the world like a great black pit and the vermin of the world Inhabit it... And it goes by the name of London."

"When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't."

"When I write a song, I become an actor.... Of course, the song has everything to do with me because I'm writing it. But it also has nothing to do with me. It's for a specific character in a specific scene in a specific story."

"You can't have personal investors anymore because it's too expensive, so you have to have corporate investment or a lot of rich people."

"Work is what you do for others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself."

"When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written."

"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."