The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing. — John Cage Copy Share Image
My favorite piece [piece of music] is the one we hear all the time if we are quiet. — 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
The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences. — John Cage Copy Share Image
Let no one imagine that in owning a recording he has the music. The very practice of music is a celebration that… — John Cage Copy Share Image
When you make music you are acting as a philosopher. You can either do that consciously or you can do it unconsciously,… — John Cage Copy Share Image
Whether I make them or not, there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent. — John Cage Copy Share Image
Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical. — 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
It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one,… — 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
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
When I hear what we call ‘music,’ it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings, or about… — John Cage Copy Share Image
We are living in a period in which many people have changed their mind about what the use of music is or… — John Cage Copy Share Image
I imagine that as contemporary music goes on changing in the way that I'm changing it what will be done is to… — John Cage Copy Share Image
A sound does not view itself as thought, as ought, as needing another sound for its elucidation, as etc.; it has not… — John Cage Copy Share Image
What is the purpose of writing music? One is, of course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer… — John Cage Copy Share Image
“Before leaving the earth altogether, let us as: How does Music stand with respect to its instruments, their pitches, the scales, modes… — 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