John Cage Quotes

I like both music and acting, and they both have a lot in common - timing, immediacy, stuff like that. But acting is more regimented. You wait around for hours, you don't get to write the script, you get hired. Music represents me better. I'm not acting; I'm just expressing myself.

And dance is wonderful because dance is so immediate.

I differ from most of you on most of the issues of life, and I’m going to keep it up.

I like the natural sound of a room. All the rooms have their own sound, so it's a matter of putting it where you like and seeing what it sounds like.

In the modern view, unbridled personal freedom is the only good to be pursued; any obstacle to it is a problem to be overcome.

Don't try to fine-tune somebody else's view.

conformity has been a devastating thing. Its ill effects continue right to this day. Customers still look at the woman in the next chair and say, 'I'll have what she has.' That's all right for ordering at a restaurant - but not in a beauty parlor.

A man is called affected, nowadays, if he dresses as he likes to dress. But in doing that he is acting in a perfectly natural manner. Affectation, in such matters, consists in dressing according to the views of one's neighbour, whose views, as they are the views of the majority, will probably be extremely stupid.

You have this resonant box that sounds cool when you smack it, so why not go for it?

Let the views of others educate and inform you, but let your decisions be a product of your own conclusions.

I feel a responsibility to make sure that the voices from our community are heard. I do not feel a responsibility to agree with them. No one tells me what to think. I think for me.

I often warn people: "Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you, 'There is no "I" in team.' What you should tell them is, 'Maybe not. But there is an "I" in independence, individuality and integrity.

I am too not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

Ah men, why do you want all this attention? I can write poems for myself, make love to a doorknob if absolutely necessary. What do you have to offer me I can't find otherwise except humiliation? Which I no longer need.

If you wanted to chart new territories and head off over the horizon, you had to make sure you weren't overly influenced by what others were doing ... so it didn't matter what other bands were doing ... we did what we were doing.

You have to be able to make a real creative life for Yourself, before you can expect anyone Else to provide one ready-made for you.

Happiness is a powerful thing. It freed me to do what I always wanted to do.

In order to be able to live at all in America I must be unafraid to live anywhere in it, and I must be able to live in the fashion and with whom I choose.

My own opinion is enough for me. And I claim the right to defend it against any consensus, any majority anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line and kiss my ass.

Looking back, I don't know why we needed it to be quite so loud all the time.

I don't dress to be stared at. I dress for myself.

As a writer, you are free.

The principal fact of life is the free mind.

We must be free, but to have real freedom, you must be wild and free yourself.

just let Mitch be Mitch