Sheldon Harnick Quotes

#1. The whole world is festering with unhappy souls: The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles' Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch; and I don't like anybody very much!

Sheldon Harnick

#2. Where you learn things, really, is watching it in front of an audience.

Sheldon Harnick

#3. When you collaborate, you have to be willing to scrap a lot.

Sheldon Harnick

#4. I started writing lyrics out of desperation. I was broke and wondering where my next job, my next meal was coming from, although I had had several successful revue songs on Broadway.

Sheldon Harnick

#5. I like editing. Generally, you work under the assumption that everything can be shorter. I like to see if I can reconstruct a sentence. I find that enjoyable work.

Sheldon Harnick

#6. I'd heard that Lenny Bruce used a lot of profanity and obscenities in his act, and I was curious.

Sheldon Harnick

#7. As far as I remember, there was no actual lyric written to that.At the very beginning of "Fiddler on the Roof," there's a violin solo, an unaccompanied violin solo.

Sheldon Harnick

#8. I feel in my own life I've made many mistakes. I've failed in many directions.

Sheldon Harnick

#9. Love was not something that people married for generally in those days. They married for security. They married for economic reasons, you know, companionship - but not love.

Sheldon Harnick

#10. I have a lot of unknown songs.

Sheldon Harnick