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It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.

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.
Irritating
Somewhere
Else
Would
Think
Thinking
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Whether I make them or not, there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent.
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The attitude I take is that everyday life is more interesting than forms of celebration, when we become aware of it. That when is when our intentions go down to zero. Then suddenly you notice that the world is magical.
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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 need not destroy the past. It is gone.
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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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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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Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.
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All God's religions ... have not been able to put mankind back together again.
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Music is a means of rapid transportation.
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One day when I was studying with Schoenberg, he pointed out the eraser on his pencil and said, 'This end is more important than the other.' After twenty years I learned to write directly in ink.
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Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.
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Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.
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Let no one imagine that in owning a recording he has the music. The very practice of music is a celebration that we own nothing.
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Food, one assumes, provides nourishment but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.
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One shouldn't go to the woods looking for something, but rather to see what is there.
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In an utter emptiness anything can take place.
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Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in.
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Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.
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The world is teeming anything can happen.
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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.
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