Quotes by John Cage

“I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.”

“If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.”

“The emotions - love, mirth, the heroic, wonder, tranquility, fear, anger, sorrow, disgust - are in the audience.”

“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 v...”

“What is the purpose of writing music? One is, of course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer must take the form of a paradox: a purposeful purposeless or a purposeless ...”

“nothing is accomplished by writing a piece of musicnothing is accomplished by hearing a piece of musicnothing is accomplished by playing a piece of musicour ears are now in excellent condition.”

“After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, "In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony." I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said...”

“Freedom from likes and dislikes, the sudden sense of identification, the spirit of comedy.”

“There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.”

“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 su...”

“Only chance to make the world a success for humanity lies in technology, grand possibility technology provides to do more with less, and indiscriminately for everyone. Return to nature as nature pr...”

“Power and profit structures're out of cahoots with current technology. Aware of new inventions, corporations put them aside, waiting for competitive reasons until they're obliged to use new gimmicks.”

“Remove God from the world of ideas. Remove government, politics from society. Keep sex, humor, utilities. Let private property go.”

“All great art is a form of complaint”

“Art is sort of an experimental station in which one tries out living”

“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...”

“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), ...”

“So it is with the places preparing to teach us. It's only when the heart begins to beat wildly and without patternwhen it begins to realize its boundlessnessthat its newly adamant pulse bangs on th...”

“If my work is accepted, I must move on to the point where it is not.”

“Suffering builds character and impels you to penetrate lifes secrets. Its the path of great artists, great religious leaders, great social reformers. The problem is not suffering per se, but rather...”