John Cage

If you don't have enough time to accomplish something, consider the work finished once it's begun.

If this word "music" is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound.

Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical.

Ideas are one thing and what happens is another.

The white paintings came first; my silent piece came later.

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.'

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

Art is whatever you can get away with.

Our poetry now is the realization that we possess nothing. Anything therefore is a delight (since we do not posses it) and thus need not fear its loss.

A 'mistake' is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is.

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

Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of it's own accord.

I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing.

Everything we do is music." (Classical Composer)(From: 4'33")

Whether I make them or not, there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent.

It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.