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.

A sound does not view itself as thought, as ought, as needing another sound for its elucidation, as etc.; it has not time for any consideration--it is occupied with the performance of its characteristics: before it has died away it must have made perfectly exact its frequency, its loudness, its length, its overtone structure, the precise morphology of these and of itself.

Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of it's own accord.

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

When you start working, everybody is in your studio- the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas- all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you are lucky, even you leave.

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.

After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, ‘In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony.’ I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall through which I could not pass. I said, ‘In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall.’

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.

Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in.

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.

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

What I'm proposing, to myself and other people, is what I often call the tourist attitude - that you act as though you've never been there before. So that you're not supposed to know anything about it. If you really get down to brass tacks, we have never been anywhere before.

People paying attention to vibratory activity, not in reaction to a fixed ideal performance, but each time attentively to how it happens to be this time, not necessarily two times the same. A music that transports the listener to the moment where he is.

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.

I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, 'You'll come to a wall you won't be able to get through.' So I said, 'I'll beat my head against that wall.'

A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain.

I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left.

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

It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of 'culture.'

The world is teeming; anything can happen.

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

Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school? Are the people inside the school musical and the ones outside unmusical? What if the ones inside can't hear very well, would that change my question?

Ideas are one thing and what happens is another.

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.

I never had a hat, never wore one, but recently was given a brown suede duck-hunting hat. The moment I put it on I realized I was starved for a hat. I kept it warm by putting it on my head. I made plans to wear it especially when I was going to do any thinking. Somewhere in Virginia, I lost my hat.

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.

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

There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things that don’t have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. Don’t have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure.

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

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.

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

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.

Art is whatever you can get away with.

I believe the use of noise to make music will increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard.

Music is a means of rapid transportation.

Paper should be edible, nutritious. Inks used for printing or writing should have delicious flavors. Magazines or newspapers read at breakfast should be eaten for lunch. Instead of throwing one's mail in the waste-basket, it should be saved for the dinner guests.