Audiences are quite happy to be astonished, and they don't care who does that astonishing.

The musical has always been in jeopardy - until - or was in jeopardy until it was realised that it is probably the safest living theatre art form.

I don't look back. I look forward and plan new shows. That's really feeding the most important part of working in the theater.

I have a terrible memory because I'm not interested in the past. It's done, it's done.

A star may guarantee business, but the tradeoff is a very short run.

I was there when the quote-unquote golden age of musical theater was flourishing. I met everybody who worked in theater or was famous in theater from the '40s on.

Criticism is valuable... and self-congratulatory experiences are not.

It's a terrible shame if you're born the brightest guy in your class. If you're not, then you have to hustle-and that's good.

I'm always glad to see somebody rethink something rather than reproduce something I did.

We've got to find a way to protect the process of making musical theater.

The perfect expression of receiving a lifetime award is to be working when they're handing it out.

You are all alike, you people. You never learn the truth--that God knows nothing.

You shouldn't allow people who hurt you to occupy a fraction of your heart. Forgive and move on, especially in this season of thanksgiving.

Hell is indefinite.

Besides the two Christmas things, we've got a about a dozen new tracks we're working on.

It's that kind of choice of a woman - to go with the nice guy or the nasty guy. And I think that all women get to make that choice and they always go for the suave, nasty guy. It's a fact of life.

Every time I'm in a foreign place and a different city, I'm always asking around to say, OK, well, what's special here in this particular place? What makes these people move here and why?

Magnify the divine mystery and the holiness of mankind.

My dads music was a great inspiration to me.

I am the least jealous person I have ever met.

The delicate sensitivity of a frightened rattlesnake.