John Cage Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing.

  John Cage

  Trying, Sake, Habit

  John Cage (2010). “Silence: Lectures and Writings”, p.6, Wesleyan University Press

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• I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson. And so we make our lives by what we love.

  John Cage

  Sound, Lessons, Remember

  John Cage (2011). “Silence: Lectures and Writings, 50th Anniversary Edition”, Wesleyan University Press

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• I imagine that as contemporary music goes on changing in the way that I'm changing it what will be done is to more and more completely liberate sounds from abstract ideas about them and more and more exactly to let them be physically uniquely themselves. This means for me: knowing more and more not what I think a sound is but what it actually is in all of its acoustical details and then letting this sound exist, itself, changing in a changing sonorous environment.

  John Cage

  Mean, Thinking, Ideas

  "Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music". Book by Richard Kostelanetz, 1952.

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• In the nature of the use of chance operations is the belief that all answers answer all questions.

  John Cage

  Use, Answers, Chance

  John Cage (1997). “I–VI: MethodStructureIntentionDisciplineNotationIndeterminacyInterpenetrationImitationDevotionCircumstancesVariableStructureNonunderstandingContingencyInconsistencyPerformance”, p.456, Wesleyan University Press

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• As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.

  John Cage

  Consistency, Inconsistency

  Interview with John Corbett, 1989.

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• We carry our homes within us which enables us to fly.

  John Cage

  Home

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• The responsibility of the artist consists in perfecting his work so that it may become attractively disinteresting.

  John Cage

  Responsibility, Artist, May

  John Cage (2011). “Silence: Lectures and Writings, 50th Anniversary Edition”, Wesleyan University Press

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• The white paintings came first; my silent piece came later.

  John Cage

  White, Pieces, Firsts

  John Cage (2010). “Silence: Lectures and Writings”, p.112, Wesleyan University Press

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• There will always be critics eager to fashion opinions for the lazy and incapable.

  John Cage

  Fashion, Lazy, Opinion

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• 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

  Thinking, Hunting, Ducks

  John Cage (2010). “A Year from Monday: New Lectures and Writings”, p.116, Wesleyan University Press

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• 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

  Two, People, Attention

  "John Cage: An Autobiographical Statement". www.johncage.org. April 17, 1990.

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• I believe the use of noise to make music will increase until we reach a
  music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make
  available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard.

  John Cage

  Believe, Musical, Sound

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• If you don't have enough time to accomplish something, consider the work finished once it's begun.

  John Cage

  Work, Enough Time, Time Management

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• Our poetry now is the realization that we possess nothing. Anything therefore is a delight (since we do not posses it) and thus need not fear its loss.

  John Cage

  Loss, Poetry, Needs

  "Silence: Lectures and Writings". Book by John Cage, 1959.

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• Where does beauty begin? Where does it end? Where it ends is where the artist begins.

  John Cage

  Beauty, Artist, Doe

  John Cage (2010). “Silence: Lectures and Writings”, p.8, Wesleyan University Press

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• It's useless to play lullabies for those who cannot sleep.

  John Cage

  Sleep, Play, Useless

  John Cage (2010). “M: Writings ’67–’72”, p.15, Wesleyan University Press

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• 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

  Music, Strong, Ears

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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

  Zero, Attitude, Interesting

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• We are not committed to this or that. We are committed to the nothing in-between, whether we know it or not.

  John Cage

  Committed, Knows

  John Cage (2010). “A Year from Monday: New Lectures and Writings”, p.119, Wesleyan University Press

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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.

  John Cage

  People, Orchestra, Gang

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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

  Feelings, Want, Way

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• In an utter emptiness anything can take place.

  John Cage

  Emptiness

  John Cage (2011). “Silence: Lectures and Writings, 50th Anniversary Edition”, Wesleyan University Press

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• College: two hundred people reading the same book. An obvious mistake. Two hundred people can read two hundred books.

  John Cage

  Mistake, Book, Reading

  John Cage (2010). “M: Writings ’67–’72”, p.61, Wesleyan University Press

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• 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

  Blood, Years, Two

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• 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

  Wall, Writing, Feelings

  Observer magazine Interview, 1982.

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