Quotes

[on meeting Stephen Sondheim while working on "Gypsy"] "I thought he might hit me over the head, knowing that he wanted to do the whole show. He was young, ambitious, and a huge talent. But he was also very gentle, and we got along fine".

[observation, 1973] I have been too hasty. In my anxiety to practice my work as Dick Rodgers and Larry Hart and Cole Porter did, I found myself doing two shows a year up until two years ago. And I have been doing a lot of bad shows because there aren't any good books around. But I still practice my art. If you stop for a long time, no good. You have to practice. I don't care 'what' you write - good, bad, rotten - write a short or long story, notes, a joke, find something. Gotta write something.

I think the greatest woman singer of my time is Barbra Streisand. I'll never live to hear anyone else who has so much. I love that voice so much. It hasn't been drawn on yet. It is an unending chain of events, and they will always reach and give me something new that's bewildering. It's very exciting to me to hear this thing come out of that mouth.

Enthusiasm is hardly inspiration, it's perspiration.I think only amateurs have to be inspired in some ways. You're a professional, you do your job. The inspiration comes later on when you haver already got something and are inspired to make it better, better than it is. When I write a score for a play, just to give you an idea, I write between forty and fifty songs to get sixteen. Sometimes they accept this, and I come back but I change this, and they say,'Gee, this is better', or 'No, we'll keep the original'. But I test. I draw on myself.

A director can't just say, 'Take it out'. Even Jerry Robbins couldn't take 'Little Lamb' out of 'Gypsy'.