Sheldon Harnick Quotations

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask 'Why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous?' Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition!

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