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If this word music is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of 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.
Instruments
Eighteenth
Sacred
Nineteenth
Organization
Reserved
Century
Substitute
Term
Substitutes
Word
Piano
Sound
Music
Meaningful

More quotes by John Cage

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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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We need not destroy the past. It is gone.
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In the nature of the use of chance operations is the belief that all answers answer all questions.
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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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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.
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Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.
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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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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 is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.
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There will always be critics eager to fashion opinions for the lazy and incapable.
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...we make our lives by what we love.
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Some people take music too seriously, and some don't take it seriously enough, others take it just right.
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It's useless to play lullabies for those who cannot sleep.
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My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
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All God's religions ... have not been able to put mankind back together again.
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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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Each moment presents what happens.
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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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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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Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?
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