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Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.

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.
Operations
Soul
Music
Time
Edifying
Operation
Sets

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The world is no longer a romantic place some of its people still are however, and therein lies the promise. Don't let the world win.
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In an utter emptiness anything can take place.
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All God's religions ... have not been able to put mankind back together again.
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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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My work became an exploration of non-intention.
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Music is a means of rapid transportation.
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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.
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If someone says can't, that shows you what to do.
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The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.
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Food, one assumes, provides nourishment but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.
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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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There's no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound.
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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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My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
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In the dark, all cats are black.
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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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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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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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Out of the work comes the work.
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