Quote

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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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.
Study
Pencils
Write
Pointed
Ends
Studying
Important
Directly
Schoenberg
Writing
Twenty
Eraser
Years
Twenties
Erasers
Learned
Ink
Mistake
Pencil

More quotes by John Cage

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Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
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To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences, is to be unafraid.
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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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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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Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.
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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There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction.
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Out of the work comes the work.
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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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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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Paper should be edible, nutritious. Inks used for printing or writing should have delicious flavors. Magazines or newspapers read at breakfast should be eaten for lunch. Instead of throwing one's mail in the waste-basket, it should be saved for the dinner guests.
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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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?
John Cage
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Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this.
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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My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
John Cage
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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
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If someone says can't, that shows you what to do.
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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Everyday is a beautiful day, Everything is pleasing
John Cage