John Cage Quotes

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.

There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.

Everything you do is music, and everywhere is the best seat.

The act of listening is in fact an act of composing.

The world is no longer a romantic place; some of its people still are however, and therein lies the promise. Don't let the world win.

It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.

If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.

I have nothing to say, and I am saying it.

Good music can act as a guide to good living.

Look at everything. Don't close your eyes to the world around you. Look and become curious and interested in what there is to see.

My favorite piece [piece of music] is the one we hear all the time if we are quiet.

The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.

We need not destroy the past. It is gone.

Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.

There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.

If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.

Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in.

Whether I make them or not, there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent.

People who aren't artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired.

A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain.

The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.

As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.

Everyday is a beautiful day, Everything is pleasing

Ideas are one thing and what happens is another.

Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.

The world is teeming; anything can happen.

We carry our homes within us which enables us to fly.

Where does beauty begin? Where does it end? Where it ends is where the artist begins.

The function of Art is to imitate Nature in her manner of operation. Our understanding of her manner of operation&Rdquo changes according to advances in the sciences.

We're breaking all of the rules, even our own rules, and how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.

Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.

Theatre takes place all the time - wherever one is - and art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case.

My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard

I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing.

Music is a means of rapid transportation.

All great art is a form of complaint

Try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.

Our poetry now is the realization that we possess nothing. Anything therefore is a delight (since we do not posses it) and thus need not fear its loss.

The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature, in her manner of operation.

When we separate music from life we get is art.

If this word "music" is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound.

Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this.

It is not futile to do what we do. We wake up with energy and we do something. And we make, of course, failures and we make mistakes, but we sometimes get glimpses of what we might do next.

The Indians long ago knew that music was going on permanently and that hearing it was like looking out a window at a landscape which didn't stop when one turned away.

Every something is an echo of nothing

Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.

The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning.

A 'mistake' is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is.

I like being moved. I don't like being pushed.

My favourite music is the music I haven't yet heard. I don't hear the music I write: I write in order to hear the music I haven't yet heard.