Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall.
The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.
To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences, is to be unafraid.
Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.
All God's religions ... have not been able to put mankind back together again.
A 'mistake' is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is.
Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
There will always be critics eager to fashion opinions for the lazy and incapable.
My favorite piece [piece of music] is the one we hear all the time if we are quiet.
There's no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound.
One shouldn't go to the woods looking for something, but rather to see what is there.
Where does beauty begin? Where does it end? Where it ends is where the artist begins.
Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.
An error is simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality.
Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?
Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this.
Whether I make them or not, there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent.
We are involved in a life that passes understanding and our highest business is our daily life.
Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical.
I want to change my way of seeing, NOT my way of feeling. I was perfectly happy about my feelings.
In the nature of the use of chance operations is the belief that all answers answer all questions.
If you don't have enough time to accomplish something, consider the work finished once it's begun.
I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson. And so we make our lives by what we love.
The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences.
Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want
Some people take music too seriously, and some don't take it seriously enough, others take it just right.
There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction.
We are not committed to this or that. We are committed to the nothing in-between, whether we know it or not.
Not one sound fears the silence that extinguishes it. And no silence exists that is not pregnant with sound.
It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.
Why do you not do as I do? Letting go of your thoughts as though they were the cold ashes of a long dead fire?
Combine nursing homes with nursery schools. Bring very old and very young together: they interest one another.
The emotions - love, mirth, the heroic, wonder, tranquility, fear, anger, sorrow, disgust - are in the audience.
Theatre takes place all the time - wherever one is - and art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case.
If there are questions then, of course, there are answers, but the final answer makes the questions seem absurd.
The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature, in her manner of operation.
The responsibility of the artist consists in perfecting his work so that it may become attractively disinteresting.
The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning.
College: two hundred people reading the same book. An obvious mistake. Two hundred people can read two hundred books.
We're breaking all of the rules, even our own rules, and how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.
Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.
To see, one must go beyond the imiagination and for that one must stand absolutely still as though at the center of a leap.
Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating.
People who aren't artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired.
Let no one imagine that in owning a recording he has the music. The very practice of music is a celebration that we own nothing.
Look at everything. Don't close your eyes to the world around you. Look and become curious and interested in what there is to see.
The world is no longer a romantic place; some of its people still are however, and therein lies the promise. Don't let the world win.
When you make music you are acting as a philosopher. You can either do that consciously or you can do it unconsciously, but you're doing it.