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

John Cage

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John Cage
Age: 79 †
Born: 1912
Born: September 5
Died: 1992
Died: August 2
Composer
Illustrator
Music Theorist
Musician
Musicologist
Painter
Philosopher
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
LA
California
John Milton Cage Jr.
John Milton Cage
Jr.
John Milton
Jr. Cage
J. C.
Possess
Soon
Poetry
Realize
Realizing
Nothing
Poetic

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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.
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The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning.
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The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.
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Art is whatever you can get away with.
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The responsibility of the artist consists in perfecting his work so that it may become attractively disinteresting.
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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.
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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.
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There will always be critics eager to fashion opinions for the lazy and incapable.
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For myself and my own experience now, I don't really need any music. I have enough to listen to with just the sounds of the environment. I listen to the sounds of 6th avenue.
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When I went to the analyst for a kind of preliminary meeting, he said, 'I'll be able to fix you so that you'll write much more music than you do now.' I said, 'Good heavens! I already write too much, it seems to me.' That promise of his put me off.
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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.
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Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.
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An error is simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality.
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The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences.
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Some people take music too seriously, and some don't take it seriously enough, others take it just right.
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A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain.
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There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction.
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Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want
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