Quote

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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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.
Burn
Actually
Gotten
Art
Burning
People
Begin
Overpopulated
Talent
Dime
Somebody
Dimes
Food
Dozen
Point

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The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences.
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I want to change my way of seeing, NOT my way of feeling. I was perfectly happy about my feelings.
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Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
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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.
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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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Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation.
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It is not futile to do what we do. We wake up with energy and we do something. And we make, of course, failures and we make mistakes, but we sometimes get glimpses of what we might do next.
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There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.
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We need not destroy the past. It is gone.
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What I'm proposing, to myself and other people, is what I often call the tourist attitude - that you act as though you've never been there before. So that you're not supposed to know anything about it. If you really get down to brass tacks, we have never been anywhere before.
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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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Guy Nearing told us it's a good idea when hunting mushrooms to have a pleasant goal, a waterfall for instance, and, having reached it, to return another way. When, however, we're obliged to go and come back by the same path, returning we notice mushrooms we hadn't noticed going out.
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Music is a means of rapid transportation.
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There will always be critics eager to fashion opinions for the lazy and incapable.
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My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard
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We only hear what we listen for.
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Look at everything. Don't close your eyes to the world around you. Look and become curious and interested in what there is to see.
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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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Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical.
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I don't need sound to talk to me.
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