KEEPING THINGS MYSTERIOUS (JOHN CAGE)

"I think it was Steve Reich who said it was clear I was  involved in process, but it was a process the audience didn't participate in because they couldn't understand it. I'm on the side of keeping things mysterious, and I have never enjoyed understanding things. If I understand something, I have no further use for it. So I try to make a music which I don't understand and which will be difficult for other people to understand too." 

 

John Cage, quoted by Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats. John Cage, Zen Buddhism and the Inner Life of Artists, The Penguin Press, 2012.