"Get yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in."
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John Cage quotes (page 2 of 8)
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"Whether I make them or not, there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent."
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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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"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."
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"People who aren't artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired."
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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.'"
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"A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain."
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"I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left."
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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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"As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency."
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"Everyday is a beautiful day, Everything is pleasing"
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"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?"
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"Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think."
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"The world is teeming; anything can happen."
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"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.'"
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"Ideas are one thing and what happens is another."
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"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."
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"Where does beauty begin? Where does it end? Where it ends is where the artist begins."
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"We carry our homes within us which enables us to fly."
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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."
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