Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.
Stephen SondheimRead
Work is what you do for others, liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the distinction between work done for the benefit of others and art created for personal fulfillment.
Stephen Sondheim emphasizes that work often involves responsibilities and obligations to others, whereas art is a deeply personal expression that serves the artist's own feelings, thoughts, and desires. This distinction prompts individuals to reflect on their motivations and the value of self-expression in their lives.
In practice
During an art exhibit, one could quote this to emphasize the personal nature of artistic expression.
Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night. Tonight there will be no morning star.
After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes.
Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.
Let Pirelli's / Miracle Elixir / Activate your roots, sir... Keep it off your boots, sir- / Eats right through. Yes, get Pirelli's! / Use a bottle of it! / Ladies seem to love it... Flies do, too!
Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.
Careful the spell you cast, not just on children. Sometimes the spell may last Past what you can see And turn against you... Careful the tale you tell. That is the spell.
I try all night to play a pretty note.
Every artist will one day face the moment when he or she is doing what he or she does after the style has passed and the art-world heat-seeking machine has moved on.
Come clean with a child heart Laugh as peaches in the summer wind Let rain on a house roof be a song Let the writing on your face be a smell of apple orchards on late June.
That strain again! It had a dying fall: _x000D_ _x000D_ O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound _x000D_ _x000D_ That breathes upon a bank of violets, _x000D_ _x000D_ Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more: _x000D_ _x000D_ 'Tis not so sweet as it was before.
An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch.
Any great art work β¦ revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world - the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.