John Cage Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by John Cage.
Famous Quotes By John Cage
There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. — John Cage
Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. — John Cage
Discord occasions a momentary distress to the ear, which remains unsatisfied, and even uneasy, until it hears something better. I am convinced ... that provided the ear be at length made amends, there are few dissonances too strong for it. Disharmony, to paraphrase Bergson's statement about disorder, is simply a harmony to which many are unaccustomed. — John Cage
Combine nursing homes with nursery schools. Bring very old and very young together: they interest one another. — John Cage
One evening I was walking along Hollywood Boulevard, nothing much to do. I stopped and looked in the window of a stationary shop. A mechanized pen was suspended in space in such a way that, as a mechanized roll of paper passed by it, the pen went through the motions of the same penmanship exercises I had learned as a child in the third grade. Centrally placed in the window was an advertisement explaining the mechanical reasons for the perfection of the operation of the suspended mechanical pen. I was fascinated, for everything was going wrong. Then pen was tearing the paper to shreds and splattering in all over the window and on the advertisement, which, nevertheless, remained legible. — John Cage
If you don't have enough time to accomplish something, consider the work finished once it's begun. — John Cage
Not one sound fears the silence that extinguishes it. And no silence exists that is not pregnant with sound. — John Cage
It was at Harvard not quite forty years ago that I went into an anechoic [totally silent] chamber not expecting in that silent room to hear two sounds: one high, my nervous system in operation, one low, my blood in circulation. The reason I did not expect to hear those two sounds was that they were set into vibration without any intention on my part. That experience gave my life direction, the exploration of nonintention. No one else was doing that. I would do it for us. I did not know immediately what I was doing, nor, after all these years, have I found out much. I compose music. — John Cage
The reason we life black people isn't because they're black. We like them because they're not as grey as we are. — John Cage
College: two hundred people reading the same book. An obvious mistake. Two hundred people can read two hundred books. — John Cage
We are simple-minded enough to think that if we were saying something we would use words. We are rather doing something. The meaning of what we do is determined by each one who sees and hears it. — John Cage
Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck
passing by a music school?
Are the people inside the school musical and the ones outside unmusical?
What if the ones inside can't hear very well, would that change my question? — John Cage
It would be better to have no school at all than the schools we now have. Encouraged, instead of frightened, children could learn several languages before reaching age of four, at that age engaging in the invention of their own languages. Play'd be play instead of being, as now, release of repressed anger. — John Cage
Freedom from likes and dislikes, the sudden sense of identification, the spirit of comedy. — John Cage
Veblen called it the price-system. Mills called it the Power Elite. It's probably no more than ninety-nine people who don't know what they are doing. They're involved in high finance. Fascinating form of gambling. — John Cage
Theatre takes place all the time - wherever one is - and art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case. — John Cage
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. — John Cage
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. — John Cage
Remove God from the world of ideas. Remove government, politics from society. Keep sex, humor, utilities. Let private property go. — John Cage
The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning. — John Cage
Whereas what we need is to fumble around in the darkness, because that's where our lives (not necessarily all of the time, but at least some of the time, and particularly when life gets problematical for us) takes place. — John Cage
A mind that is interested in changing ... is interested precisely in the things that are at extremes. I'm certainly like that. Unless we go to extremes, we won't get anywhere. — John Cage
Why is it that children, taught the names of the months and the fact that there are twelve of them, don't ask why the ninth is called the seventh (September), the tenth called the eight (October), the eleventh called the ninth (November), the twelfth called the tenth (December)? — John Cage
A finished work is exactly that, requires resurrection. — John Cage
We carry our homes within us which enables us to fly. — John Cage
What right do I have to be in the woods, if the woods are not in me. — John Cage
Why make art ? To quiet the mind thus making it susceptible to divine influences. — John Cage
Each moment presents what happens. — John Cage
Things we were going to do are now being done by others. They were, it seems, not in our minds to do (were we or they out of our minds?) but simply ready to enter any open mind, any mind disturbed enough not to have an idea in it. — John Cage
In our forests
part divine
and makes her heart palpitate
wild and tame are one. What a delicious Sound! — John Cage
A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain. — John Cage
One need not fear for the future of music. — John Cage
Clothes I wear for mushroom hunting are rarely sent to the cleaner. They constitute a collection of odors I produce and gather while rambling in the woods. I notice not only dogs (cats, too) are delighted (they love to smell me). — John Cage
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
There will always be critics eager to fashion opinions for the lazy and incapable. — John Cage
My favorite piece of music is the one we hear all the time if we are quiet. — John Cage
Everything we do is music." (Classical Composer)(From: 4'33") — John Cage
As McLuhan says, everything happens at once. — John Cage
Corporate Responsibility; Environmental Preservation; Consumer Protection; Sex & Race Discrimination (they must mean Sex and Race Liberation). — John Cage
I haven't been to a movie for three months of Sundays. I gather from what Carolyn reports that Hollywood now produces false entertainment: unmitigated violence on the screen; snickering, laughter in the audience. — John Cage
When you make music you are acting as a philosopher. You can either do that consciously or you can do it unconsciously, but you're doing it. — John Cage
Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes. — John Cage
While he rested, she asked, 'What's the difference between natives and outsiders?' 'Natives,' he replied, 'eat indoors and shit outdoors, outsiders eat outdoors and shit indoors. — John Cage
No one can have an idea once he starts really listening. — John Cage
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
Frost interviewing Noel Coward and Margaret Mead. Sir Noel's view of life is Sir Noel. Mead's mind is large and open, like Buckminster Fuller's. She found thoughts dull that suggest that men are superior to animals or plants. — John Cage
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
The white paintings came first; my silent piece came later. — John Cage
Everything you do is music, and everywhere is the best seat. — John Cage
Valda said that if you change your residence every six months you can legally free your children from compulsory education. — John Cage
We are not committed to this or that. We are committed to the nothing in-between, whether we know it or not. — John Cage
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
You can feel an emotion, just don't think that it's so important. — John Cage
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
It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else. — John Cage
Nothing is accomplished by writing a piece of music
nothing is accomplished by hearing a piece of music
nothing is accomplished by playing a piece of music
our ears are now in excellent condition. — John Cage
Out of the work comes the work. — John Cage
I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry. — John Cage
Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this. — John Cage
I never had a hat, never wore one, but recently was given a brown suede duck-hunting hat. The moment I put it on I realized I was starved for a hat. I kept it warm by putting it on my head. I made plans to wear it especially when I was going to do any thinking. Somewhere in Virginia, I lost my hat. — John Cage
All God's religions ... have not been able to put mankind back together again. — John Cage
The important questions are answered by not liking only but disliking and accepting equally what one likes and dislikes. Otherwise there is no access to the dark night of the soul. — John Cage
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. — John Cage
Whether I make them or not, there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent. — John Cage
There are no secrets.It's just we thought that they said dead. When they said bread. — John Cage
People paying attention to vibratory activity, not in reaction to a fixed ideal performance, but each time attentively to how it happens to be this time, not necessarily two times the same. A music that transports the listener to the moment where he is. — John Cage
If someone says can't, that shows you what to do. — John Cage
We only hear what we listen for. — John Cage
If there are questions then, of course, there are answers, but the final answer makes the questions seem absurd. — John Cage
Each something is a celebration of the nothing that supports it. — John Cage
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
We need not destroy the past. It is gone. — John Cage
Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want — John Cage
Nothing more than nothing can be said. — John Cage
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. — John Cage
Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens. — John Cage
It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of 'culture.' — John Cage
Some people take music too seriously, and some don't take it seriously enough, others take it just right ... — John Cage
The function of Art is to imitate Nature in her manner of operation. Our understanding of her manner of operation&Rdquo; changes according to advances in the sciences. — John Cage
I went to a concert upstairs in Town Hall. The composer whose works were being performed had provided program notes. One of these notes was to the effect that there is too much pain in the world. After the concert I was walking along with the composer and he was telling me how the performances had not been quite up to snuff. So I said, "Well, I enjoyed the music, but I didn't agree with that program note about there being too much pain in the world." He said, "What? Don't you think there's enough?" I said, "I think there's just the right amount. — John Cage
When we separate music from life we get art. — John Cage
I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, 'You'll come to a wall you won't be able to get through.' So I said, 'I'll beat my head against that wall.' — John Cage
Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in. — John Cage
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. — John Cage
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
There's nothing we really need to do that isn't dangerous — John Cage