235 Quotes by John Cage

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.

When I hear what we call ‘music,’ it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings, or about his ideas of relationships. But when I hear traffic, the sound of traffic — here on Sixth Avenue, for instance — I don’t have the feeling that anyone is talking. I have the feeling that sound is acting. And I love the activity of sound I don’t need sound to talk to me.

We need not destroy the past. It is gone.

As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.

Ideas are one thing and what happens is another.

Every something is an echo of nothing

The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature, in her manner of operation.

In the dark, all cats are black.

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.