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Try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.

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
Cannot
May
Trying
Make

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Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of it's own accord.
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Why do you not do as I do? Letting go of your thoughts as though they were the cold ashes of a long dead fire?
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My work became an exploration of non-intention.
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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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There will always be critics eager to fashion opinions for the lazy and incapable.
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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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It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.
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What right do I have to be in the woods, if the woods are not in me.
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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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Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.
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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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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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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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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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Music is a means of rapid transportation.
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All God's religions ... have not been able to put mankind back together again.
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We only hear what we listen for.
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Each moment presents what happens.
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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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.
John Cage