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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.
Poetry
Realize
Realizing
Nothing
Poetic
Possess
Soon

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There will always be critics eager to fashion opinions for the lazy and incapable.
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Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical.
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Each something is a celebration of the nothing that supports it.
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Artists talk a lot about freedom. So, recalling the expression free as a bird, Morton Feldman went to a park one day and spent some time watching our feathered friends. When he came back, he said, You know? They're not free: they're fighting over bits of food.
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The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.
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Out of the work comes the work.
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Everyday is a beautiful day, Everything is pleasing
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When we separate music from life we get is art.
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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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My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
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In the dark, all cats are black.
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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.
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An error is simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality.
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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.
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My work became an exploration of non-intention.
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We are involved in a life that passes understanding and our highest business is our daily life.
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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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We only hear what we listen for.
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Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this.
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No one can have an idea once he starts really listening.
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