Top 374 Quotes & Sayings by Frank Zappa
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American singer Frank Zappa.
Last updated on April 13, 2025.
Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.
Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, uses that something to support their own existence.
Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.
Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read.
No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to.
The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows.
All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.
One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds.
You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.
Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.
Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.
Music is always a commentary on society.
I searched for years I found no love. I'm sure that love will never be a product of plasticity.
There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another.
A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.
If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.
You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.
Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.
Without deviation progress is not possible.
Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.
It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.
The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. You eat this apple, you're going to be as smart as God. We can't have that.
Republican is fine, if your a millionaire. Democrats is fair, if all you own is what you wear. Neither of them's really right, cause neither of them care.
It gets harder the more you know. Because the more you find out the uglier everything seems.
The last election just laid the foundation of the next 500 years of Dark Ages.
Censoring what you say is one of the ways in which people who are not nice can take away your personal freedom.
The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.
The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own.
Power will be maintained by the groovy guy or gal who gets the most media coverage for his sleaze. Naturally, his friends in various businesses will do okay, too.
America was founded by the refuse of the religious fanatics of England, these undesirable elements that came over on the Mayflower. Ignorant, religious fanatics who land here and abuse the Indians.
I'm vile and perverted. I'm obsessed and deranged. I've existed for years but very little has changed. I'm the tool of the government and industry too. For I'm destined to rule and regulate you. You may think I'm pernicious, but you can't look away. I'll make you think I'm delicious with the stuff that I say. I'm the best you can get... have you guessed me yet? I'm the slime oozing out of your TV set.
I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white.
Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is THE BEST.
I would say that today, dishonesty is the rule, and honesty the exception. It could be, statistically, that more people are honest than dishonest, but the few that really control things are not honest, and that tips the balance.
Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be.
There are only two things to remember. Number one...Don't Stop, and number two...Keep Going!
The most important thing to do in your life is to not interfere with somebody else's life.
Music is the only religion that delivers the goods.
Without deviance from normality, there can be no progress.
Republicans stand for raw, unbridled evil and greed and ignorance smothered in balloons and ribbons.
Schools train people to be ignorant, with style. They give you the equipment that you need to be a functional ignoramus. American schools* do not equip you to deal with things like logic; they don't give you the criteria by which to judge between good and bad in any medium or format; and they prepare you to be a usable victim for military-industrial complex that needs manpower.
It's better to have something to remember than anything to regret.
Anybody who wants religion is welcome to it, as far as I'm concerned--I support your right to enjoy it. However, I would appreciate it if you exhibited more respect for the rights of those people who do not wish to share your dogma, rapture, or necrodestination.
It has never mattered to me that thirty million people might think I'm wrong. The number of people who thought Hitler was right did not make him right... Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?
In every language, the first word after "Mama!" that every kid learns to say is "Mine!" A system that doesn't allow ownership, that doesn't allow you to say "Mine!" when you grow up, has - to put in mildly - a fatal design flaw.
Interviewer: 'So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?' Frank Zappa: 'You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?
The universe consists of 5% protons, 5% neutrons, 5% electrons and 85% morons.
Americans like to talk about (or be told about) Democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an 'inconvenience.' We have opted instead for an authoritarian system disguised as a Democracy. We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there.
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.
Stupidity has a certain charm - ignorance does not.
You know, people are basically shitty. It's when they prove it over and over again that it gets obnoxious.
There's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.
A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.
Modern Americans behave as if intelligence were some sort of hideous deformity.
It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia. Eventually within the next quarter of a century, the nostalgia cycles will be so close together that people will not be able to take a step without being nostalgic for the one they just took. At that point, everything stops. Death by Nostalgia.
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