A Quote by Stephen Sondheim

Content dictates form and style.

Stephen Sondheim

Quote Topics

Content Dictates Form Style

Quote Author

Stephen Sondheim
American - Composer
Born: March 22, 1930

The abstract expressionists had that thing of, subject matter becomes content, content becomes form. And I always thought there was no room for style. I felt with my painting, the style really is the content. The style holds everything together.

Alex Katz

The content dictates the style all the time. That's the way it is. If the content of the film - as in Husbands and Wives - is highly jagged, neurotic, fast-paced, nervous New York film, it just called for that kind of shooting, editing and performance.

Woody Allen

I see every book as a problem that you have to solve. That is what dictates the form you use. It's not that you say, 'I want to write a science fiction book.' You start from the other end, and what you have to say dictates the form of it.

Doris Lessing

The documentary photographer aims his camera at the real world to record truthfulness. At the same time, he must strive for form, to devise effective ways of organizing and using the material. For content and form are interrelated. The problems presented by content and form must be so developed that the result is fundimentally [sic] true to the realities of life as we know it. The chief problem is to find a form that adequately represents the reality.

Paul Strand

To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body - both go together, they can't be separated.

Jean-Luc Godard

To me, form is not something that you can plan beforehand, especially for a documentary. You can't write it or sketch it. It requires a confrontation with reality, with history, with ethics and morals. After identifying good content, you have to find the right form to express that content.

Rithy Panh

Young writers need to be encouraged to write - just write - with no restrictions on form, style or content.

Kelley Armstrong

Good design is not about form following function. It is function with cultural content. By adding "cultural content" to the concept of "form follows function," objects cease to be finite or predictable. Maybe the right way to interpret the dictum is to first acknowledge that the function needs to be clearly understood before the form is considered.

Carl Magnusson

Content without style is propaganda or adolescence. Style without content is decadence.

Rita Mae Brown

The perfect equation is form equals content. The style of the film reflects the story, and that's what you're always aiming for. You're not always necessarily successful at it, but that's the ambition that you're trying to do.

Danny Boyle

Without the aesthetic, the computer is but a mindless speed machine, producing effects without substance, form without relevant content, or content without meaningful form.

Paul Rand

To emphasize style is to slight content, or to introduce an attitude which is neutral with respect to content.

Susan Sontag

When one has reached maturity in this art, one will have the formless form. It is like the dissolving or thawing [of] ice into water that can shape itself to any structure. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, one can fit in with any style.

Bruce Lee

In Paris style is everything. That is traditionally understood. Every street, every structure, every shopgirl has style. The style of Parisian architecture has been proved and refined by at least three centuries of academic dictates and highly developed taste. There are few violations of this taste, and there is exemplary architectural consistency. Paris has defined the aesthetics of a sophisticated urban culture.

Ada Louise Huxtable

Lack of skill dictates economy of style.

Joey Ramone

Style without content is bad style.

Louis MacNeice

A Quote by Stephen Sondheim

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors