"If you ask me to write a love song, I don't know what to write. But if you say, 'Write me a torch song about a girl who's just been jilted by a guy, and she comes into a bar and she's in a red dress and she orders a grasshopper,' that I can write, because you've started to characterize and give me specifics to write about - there's a drink to write about, there's a bar to write about, there's a dress to write about. Who was the guy who jilted her? Why did she choose that dress?"

(Stephen Joshua Sondheim, compositore, paroliere e drammaturgo; New York, 22 marzo 1930 – Roxbury, 26 novembre 2021)