Stephen Sondheim Quotes

The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent.

My favorite thing in the world is telling stories, and most of what I do is telling stories through music.

Humans are kind of story-propagating creatures. If you think of how we spend our days, think of all the time you spend on entertainment. How much of your entertainment centers around stories? Most pieces of music tell stories. Even hanging out with your friends, you talk, you tell stories to each other. They're all stories. We live in stories.

We are the only animal that tells stories.

In all Works of This, and of the Dramatic Kind, STORY, or AMUSEMENT, should be considered as little more than the Vehicle to the more necessary INSTRUCTION.

Writing songs is no different than explaining to somebody what you dreamed last night: No one ever gives you crap for what you dreamed last night. "I was laying in my bed, and all of a sudden a stallion jumped on my bed and the next thing I know I was in Mars but it looked like my kitchen"... That's kind of what I do with my songs, write them in a dream-like manner. It's up to people to swallow it however they want.

Humans like stories. Humans need stories. Stories are good. Stories work. Story clarifies and captures the essence of the human spirit. Story, in all its forms—of life, of love, of knowledge—has traced the upward surge of mankind. And story, you mark my words, will be with the last human to draw breath.

I've been transformed by stories, and I think that storytelling is definitely sacred. I take it very seriously because my life has been changed, whether it was a movie, a play, a piece of writing, poetry, a painting.

The job of a storyteller is to tell stories, and I have concentrated on that obligation.

I think "artistic" simply means there's more of the creator in the thing. Whether it's painting or song or movie or game, the creator puts more of themselves into the piece, so when the audience see it, they feel something real, they feel something human, they feel something that's like a person.

I'm an old storyteller. I tell the story. It's about the story.

The greatest art in the world is the art of storytelling.

He wanted the songs, the stories, to save everybody.

Facts interest me less than the trailing smoke of stories.

I make no distinction between writing and storytelling; I've always wanted to tell stories.

I think there is something about a story that is enduring. Stories take on a life of their own.

I'm very expressive. Expressing my emotions and experiences through music has always been an important outlet for me. Many of my songs are influenced by personal events and experiences that I have gone through.

I'm just a story teller.

Storytelling is the important thing.

As a writer, I absorb stories, allow them to churn within my own head and heart - often for years - until I find a way of telling them that fits both my time and temperament.

Artwork is a representation of our devotion to life.

Everyone seems quite good at stories and making them up.

Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: 'He/she was born, lived, died.' Probably that is the template of our stories - a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.

I didn't grow up watching film but as a Ukrainian-American, music and stories and dance are crucial.

As a songwriter, I'm not necessarily writing about myself or my life.