We are at the goal constantly

I found through Oriental philosophy, my work with Suzuki, that what we are doing is living, and that we are not moving toward a goal, but are, so to speak, at the goal constantly and changing with it, and that art, if it is going to do anything useful, should open our eyes to this fact.

John Cage, Every Day is a Good Day: The Visual Art of John Cage (Hayward Publishing, 2010) p. 72

Free of our activity

By silence, I mean the multiplicity of activity that constantly surrounds us. We call it ”silence” because it is free of our activity. It does not correspond to ideas of order or expressive feeling – they lead to order and expression, but when they do, it ”deafens” us to the sounds themselves.

John Cage, Every Day is a Good Day: The Visual Art of John Cage (Hayward Publishing, 2010) p. 71

Direct contact with ephemerality

The nature of listening is the experience of hearing something and then realizing that you’re no longer hearing it and that you’re hearing something else. This is part and parcel of hearing. When you look at a painting, you don’t have the impression that the painting is disappearing. But as you listen to sounds, you have the impression that they’re gone, and that others have taken their place. And you’re brought right by paying attention to events in time. All you need to see is [that] you’re brought into direct contact with ephemerality.

John Cage, Every Day is a Good Day: The Visual Art of John Cage (Hayward Publishing, 2010) p. 66

No such thing as empty space or empty time

There is no such thing as empty space or empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make silence, we cannot… Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.

John Cage, Every Day is a Good Day: The Visual Art of John Cage (Hayward Publishing, 2010) p. 61

Art is not an escape from life

Formerly, one was accustomed to thinking of art as something better organized than life that could be used as an escape from life. The changes that have taken place in this century, however, are such that art is not an escape from life, but rather an introduction to it.

John Cage, Every Day is a Good Day: The Visual Art of John Cage (Hayward Publishing, 2010) p. 56

Not my way of feeling

'What about the intensity, the excitement?'

'Oh, none of those aspects interested me. They're precisely the things about abstract expressionism which didn't interest me. I wanted to change my way of seeing, not my way of feeling. I'm perfectly happy about my feelings. I want to bring them, if anything, to some kind of tranquility. I don't want to disturb my feelings, and above all, I don't want somebody else to disturb my feelings. I don't spend my life being pushed around by a bunch of artists.'

Irving Sandler, 'To Open Our Eyes' in Every Day is a Good Day: The Visual Art of John Cage (Hayward Publishing, 2010) p. 50