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The act of listening is in fact an act of composing.

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.
Composing
Listening
Fact
Facts

More quotes by John Cage

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My favourite music is the music I haven't yet heard. I don't hear the music I write: I write in order to hear the music I haven't yet heard.
John Cage
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Each something is a celebration of the nothing that supports it.
John Cage
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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?
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.
John Cage
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There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things that don’t have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. Don’t have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure.
John Cage
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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
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The world, the real is not an object. It is a process.
John Cage
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If someone says can't, that shows you what to do.
John Cage
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My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
John Cage
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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.
John Cage
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Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
John Cage
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When we separate music from life we get is art.
John Cage
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I don't need sound to talk to me.
John Cage
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I want to change my way of seeing, NOT my way of feeling. I was perfectly happy about my feelings.
John Cage
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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.
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.
John Cage
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Art is sort of an experimental station in which one tries out living.
John Cage
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Each moment presents what happens.
John Cage
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Everyday is a beautiful day, Everything is pleasing
John Cage
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The world is teeming anything can happen.
John Cage