John Cage Quotes

"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.

Combine nursing homes with nursery schools. Bring very old and very young together: they interest one another.

The usefulness of the useless is good news for artists, for art serves no useful purpose. It has to do with changing minds and spirits.

I nearly left this earth a few minutes ago — ecstasy — word from you. Pretty soon I’ll write music for you.

...for we have found that by excluding we grow thin inside even though we may have an enormous bank account outside.

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?

"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.

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.

In the dark, all cats are black.

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

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.

Each day his eyes and ears were open and empty to see and hear the world he lived in.
Music, he said, is continuous; only listening is intermittent.

John Cage, 1979, reflecting on Henry David Thoreau’s solo sojourn in Walden Woods, 1845-47.

There is nothing we need to do that isn't dangerous.

In our forests
part divine
and makes her heart palpitate
wild and tame are one. What a delicious Sound!

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