Sarah Weinman Quotes

Stephen Sondheim told me that Oscar Hammerstein believed everything that he wrote. So there's great truth in the songs, and that's what was so wonderful to find.

What I want is credibility I got as a songwriter and actor and doing 'Blood Brothers' on Broadway with my brother Shaun.

If you had asked me, in the days of me dreaming about what would happen in the future, who I would want to write my first original musical, it would hands-down have been Pasek and Paul.

Broadway has been very good to me. But then, I've been very good to broadway.

I feel very fortunate to have been associated with people such as Rodgers and Hammerstein. I think they were geniuses of their time.

I've been fortunate that when Frank Sinatra was in concert, he would say, 'Here's a song by a wonderful young songwriter, Jimmy Webb,' and I'd be in the front row and stand up. That gets people talking about you.

I've had a couple of times where things were so extraordinary wonderful that it changed my world. One of them was when I met Ira Gershwin and started working with him. That was a game-changer for me. It changed the entire course and direction of my life.

I'm lucky, I'm very, very lucky. I work with some of the most amazing artists.

I came to New York for school, and then I did this amazing show that was received very well, with a great group of people, and I felt like I was creating something that I was really proud of, and then 'Hamilton' was my next big thing in New York.

I'm out here living my dream. People are listening to my music.

A lot of time, if you spend too much time in Nashville, songwriters get caught up in charts and numbers and the music business politics.

The Songwriters Hall of fame, that's the one all the big-time writers get into, the really great stuff, the Broadway stuff and all that. That would be something, to get your name in there.

Being a songwriter, you are accepting that this isn't about you. If you do want it to be about you, you're going to be really miserable.

Jeezy just recognized my grind, and I jumped on board with him to enhance it. Artistically, we're in the same mind frame. We come from very similar backgrounds - poverty. That's something that we can both relate to, something that we can convey in our music.

My first success was 'Little Shop of Horrors,' and I had been working for years on jingles.

My biggest inspiration is Audra McDonald.

Working with Rihanna has changed my life.

I was 19 when I wrote 'Dreams,' and that would have been when it started to happen. The band got signed, and I was probably beginning to see different things besides my small town of Ballybricken.

Alongside the iconic 'South Pacific,' I absolutely loved working on 'Bright Star' with Steve Martin and Edie Brickell.

My favorite collaborator is Dane Laffrey, who designed the set for 'Once on This Island,' but we've worked together since high school, when he was my roommate.

Collaborating with other artists is an emotional thing. Obviously, you don't do it unless this person inspires you.

The New York theater community didn't like being invaded by reality stars - they still don't - but I got in there and auditioned just like everybody else. They hired me for 'Hairspray' to help sell tickets for a few weeks, but I ended up being there much longer than originally planned and started to carve a niche for myself.

Oddly enough, I almost never listen to show tunes. But there are some shows I love, like Adam Guettel's 'Floyd Collins.'

I'd love to work with Prince. He's such an amazing musician.

In the 1990s music was a beautiful collaborative process between the composer, lyricist and director. They would exchange ideas and magic used to happen.