Quote

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

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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.
Imagine
Practice
Music
Nothing
Owning
Recording
Celebration
Singing

More quotes by 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.
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.
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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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So somebody has talent? So what? Dime a dozen. And we're overpopulated. Actually we have more food than we have people and more art. We've gotten to the point of burning food. When will we begin to burn our art?
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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.
John Cage
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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
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Music is a means of rapid transportation.
John Cage
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The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.
John Cage
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No one can have an idea once he starts really listening.
John Cage
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In the nature of the use of chance operations is the belief that all answers answer all questions.
John Cage
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Try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.
John Cage
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Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want
John Cage
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The responsibility of the artist consists in perfecting his work so that it may become attractively disinteresting.
John Cage
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The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning.
John Cage
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The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.
John Cage
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In an utter emptiness anything can take place.
John Cage
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Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.
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 act of listening is in fact an act of composing.
John Cage
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Art is sort of an experimental station in which one tries out living.
John Cage