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My work became an exploration of non-intention.
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.
Exploration
Intention
Became
Work
More quotes by John Cage
We only hear what we listen for.
John Cage
Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.
John Cage
In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall.
John Cage
The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning.
John Cage
The act of listening is in fact an act of composing.
John Cage
Everyday is a beautiful day, Everything is pleasing
John Cage
I don't need sound to talk to me.
John Cage
Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical.
John Cage
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.
John Cage
Our poetry now is the realization that we possess nothing. Anything therefore is a delight (since we do not posses it) and thus need not fear its loss.
John Cage
Each something is a celebration of the nothing that supports it.
John Cage
No one can have an idea once he starts really listening.
John Cage
What right do I have to be in the woods, if the woods are not in me.
John Cage
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.
John Cage
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.
John Cage
If my work is accepted, I must move on to the point where it is not.
John Cage
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.
John Cage
Guy Nearing told us it's a good idea when hunting mushrooms to have a pleasant goal, a waterfall for instance, and, having reached it, to return another way. When, however, we're obliged to go and come back by the same path, returning we notice mushrooms we hadn't noticed going out.
John Cage
Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
John Cage
What I'm proposing, to myself and other people, is what I often call the tourist attitude - that you act as though you've never been there before. So that you're not supposed to know anything about it. If you really get down to brass tacks, we have never been anywhere before.
John Cage
