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"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."

Stephen Sondheim, American Composer

Language, Poets, Poor, Writers

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"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."

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Explore more quotes by Stephen Sondheim

"Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos."

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

"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 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."

"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."

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

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

"I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra."

"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."

"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."

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