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There's no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound.

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.
Silence
Sound
Makes
Thing
Something
Always
Happenings
Happening

More quotes by John Cage

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When you start working, everybody is in your studio- the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas- all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you are lucky, even you leave.
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My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
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All great art is a form of complaint
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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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There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things that don’t have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. Don’t have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure.
John Cage
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Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.
John Cage
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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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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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Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.
John Cage
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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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Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in.
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Out of the work comes the work.
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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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To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences, is to be unafraid.
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Each moment presents what happens.
John Cage
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The Indians long ago knew that music was going on permanently and that hearing it was like looking out a window at a landscape which didn't stop when one turned away.
John Cage
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The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences.
John Cage
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I don't need sound to talk to me.
John Cage
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In the dark, all cats are black.
John Cage
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Each something is a celebration of the nothing that supports it.
John Cage