235 Quotes by John Cage

Everyday is a beautiful day, Everything is pleasing.

Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want.

The world is no longer a romantic place; some of its people still are however, and therein lies the promise. Don’t let the world win.

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.

Thoreau got up each morning and walked to the woods as though he had never been where he was going to, so that whatever was there came to him like liquid into an empty glass. Many people taking such a walk would have their heads so full of other ideas that it would be a long time before they were capable of hearing or seeing. Most people are blinded by themselves.

Everything I see is something I haven’t memorized.

My favourite music is the music I haven’t yet heard. I don’t hear the music I write: I write in order to hear the music I haven’t yet heard.

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.’

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.’