When I went to the analyst for a kind of preliminary meeting, he said, 'I'll be able to fix you so that… — John Cage Copy Share Image
Some people take music too seriously, and some don't take it seriously enough, others take it just right. — John Cage Copy Share Image
I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He… — John Cage Copy Share Image
Discord occasions a momentary distress to the ear, which remains unsatisfied, and even uneasy, until it hears something better. I am convinced...that… — John Cage Copy Share Image
With just one musician, you can really do an unlimited number of things on the inside of the piano, if you have… — John Cage Copy Share Image
“nothing is accomplished by writing a piece of music nothing is accomplished by hearing a piece of music nothing is accomplished by… — John Cage Copy Share Image
I needed another basis for musical structure. This I found in sound's duration parameter, sound's only parameter which is present even when… — John Cage Copy Share Image
A 'mistake' is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is. — John Cage Copy Share Image
The Indians long ago knew that music was going on permanently and that hearing it was like looking out a window at… — John Cage Copy Share Image
Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school? — John Cage Copy Share Image
Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of… — John Cage Copy Share Image
People paying attention to vibratory activity, not in reaction to a fixed ideal performance, but each time attentively to how it happens… — John Cage Copy Share Image
If this word "music" is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization… — John Cage Copy Share Image
There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things… — John Cage Copy Share Image
Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school? Are the people inside… — John Cage Copy Share Image
My favourite music is the music I haven't yet heard. I don't hear the music I write: I write in order to… — John Cage Copy Share Image
I believe the use of noise to make music will increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical… — John Cage Copy Share Image
If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that… — John Cage Copy Share Image
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… — John Cage Copy Share Image
It was at Harvard not quite forty years ago that I went into an anechoic [totally silent] chamber not expecting in that silent room… — John Cage Copy Share Image
So somebody has talent? So what? Dime a dozen. And we're overpopulated. Actually we have more food than we have people and more art.… — John Cage Copy Share Image
“...the important questions are answered by not liking only but disliking and accepting equally what one likes and dislikes. Otherwise there is no access… — John Cage Copy Share Image
The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing. — John Cage Copy Share Image
To see, one must go beyond the imiagination and for that one must stand absolutely still as though at the center of a leap. — John Cage Copy Share Image
Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness. — John Cage Copy Share Image
Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake… — John Cage Copy Share Image
There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction. — John Cage Copy Share Image
Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens. — John Cage Copy Share Image
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. — John Cage Copy Share Image
