"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
- John Cage
"There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing."
"Freedom from likes and dislikes, the sudden sense of identification, the spirit of comedy."
"All great art is a form of complaint"
"Art is sort of an experimental station in which one tries out living"
"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 very..."
"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 pla..."
"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."