John Cage

"Peace begins with accepting what we cannot change."

"The freedom to fail is the freedom to succeed."

"Every person carries the potential to change the world."

"We are not separate from nature; we are part of it."

"The greatest discovery is discovering yourself."

"To be alive is to be in constant transformation."

"We must learn to listen to what is not being said."

"Creativity is the intersection of chaos and order."

"The work of life is learning to accept what is."

"I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry."

"The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind thus making it susceptible to divine influences."

"I would like my life to be a smooth succession of interesting and varied events, with no time out."

"One could say that wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, we are not paying attention to where we are."

"Everything we do is music, but we simply don't hear it as such."

"To hell with looking; I am interested in experiencing."

"The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all."

"Art's purpose is not to create beautiful objects, but beautiful ways of living."

"I would like to imagine a state of affairs where the attention paid to the problems that music presents would be paid to the problems of housewives."

"If someone says can't, that shows you what to do."

"Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes."

"The world is full of sounds. What makes a difference is what we pay attention to."

"I'm here and I'm now. That's enough."

"We are involved in a life that passes understanding and our highest business is our daily life."

"Silence is not empty, it is full of answers."

"Structure is the key to communication."

"Each sound has a future where it's going to disappear."

"I don't believe in inspiration falling from the sky like rain."

"Theater takes place all the time wherever one is and everything that one does."

"To be an artist, one must think of oneself as being engaged in an experiment."

"There are no mistakes, only opportunities."