235 Quotes by 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.

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.

Look at everything. Don't close your eyes to the world around you. Look and become curious and interested in what there is to see.

What right do I have to be in the woods, if the woods are not in me.

Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this.

Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.

Now that things are so simple, there’s so much to do.

Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?

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