Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father during all those many days, and weeks and months when I didn't see my own father.
When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written.
I was essentially trained by Oscar Hammerstein to think of songs as one-act plays, to move a song from point A to point B dramatically.
I'm always conscious of what I'm writing, conscious of what the actor may ask me. I have a defense for nearly every line in the song.
If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it.
The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.
When I'm writing a song, I try to be the character.
Two of the hardest words in the language to rhyme are life and love. Of all words!
There's something inimical about the camera and song.
I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.
Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.
I happen to like movies and plays about dislikeable people as long as I get to know why they are what they are.
A close-up on screen can say all a song can.
I would have been a geologist.
Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.
When I was growing up, there was no such thing as Off-Broadway. You either got your show on or you didn't.
My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.
Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.
I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on.
Nice is different than good.
My idea of heaven is not writing.
I don't find my life that interesting. The shows, maybe. But not me.
I have, by nature, an analytical mind.
I certainly wanted my name in lights. I wanted my name on a marquee. I wanted recognition on Broadway.
I was knocked out I thought it was wonderful, they seemed so fresh and meticulous and theatrical.
All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.
In the Rodgers and Hammerstein generation, popular hits came out of shows and movies.
Musical comedies aren't written, they are re-written.
