John Cage Quotes

Even if you can sing or even if you can write a song, it takes a lot of determination, it takes some kind of thick skin, because you got to persevere despite the fact that people tell you you shouldn't do this or you shouldn't do that or you're not good enough or your style's too different. I've heard all of that stuff.

Getting ahead in a difficult profession - singing, acting, writing, whatever requires avid faith in yourself. You must be able to sustain yourself against staggering blows and unfair reversals. When I think back to those first couple of years in Rome, those endless rejections, without a glimmer of encouragement from anyone, all those failed screen tests, and yet I never let my desire slide away from me, my belief in myself and what I felt I could achieve.

Nature always begins by resisting the artist, but he who really takes it seriously does not allow that resistance to put him off his stride; on the contrary, it is that much more of a stimulus to fight for victory.

If you can quit, then quit. If you can't quit, you're a writer.

It is the first line that gives the inspiration and then it's like riding a bull. Either you just stick with it, or you don't.

The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!

Go back?" he thought. "No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter.

It's an enormous wall that's built between you and your dreams. And if every day, you just chip away... It may take ten years, but eventually you just might see some light.

We don't always choose the best solution but we carry on regardless, trying to remain upright and decent in order to do honor not to the walls or the doors or the windows but to the empty space inside, the space where we worship and venerate what is dearest and most important to us.

I know the human spirit. I haven't found a wall that can be built that a determined human being can't get over, under or around.

For everyone who thought I couldn’t do it… for everyone who thought I shouldn’t do it… for everyone who said, ‘It’s impossible’… see you at the finish line!

You have to work to carve out your own little corner, and I'm certainly smacking my head against the wall trying to make a dent. I just hope I don't get brain-damaged before I get there

Writing this book I am like a man playing the piano with lead balls attached to his knuckles.

A setback only paves the way for a comeback.

Obstacles don't have to stop you.

Every obstacle is destroyed through rigor.

When blocked or defeated in an enterprise I had much at heart, I always turned immediately to another field of work where progress looked possible, biding my time for a chance to resume the obstructed road.

Nothing - I mean nothing - and no-one - I mean no-one - will stop me going through to the end, and trying to be ready for the challenge of 2007.

In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.

She was a girl with a mountain to climb.

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

I know fear is an obstacle for some people, but it is an illusion to me . . . Failure always made me try harder next time.

Perseverance is the most overrated of traits, if it is unaccompanied by talent; beating your head against a wall is more likely to produce a concussion in the head than a hole in the wall.

Hard work and best efforts will not by themselves dig us out of the pit.

If people don't think the odds are against you, you're doing it wrong.