Top 374 Quotes & Sayings by Frank Zappa - Page 3

On a personal level, Freaking Out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricting standards of thinking, dress, and social etiquette in order to express creatively his relationship to his immediate environment and the social structure as a whole.

The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar; now that's my idea of a good time.

A composer's job involves the decoration of fragments of time.

Music is the most physically inspiring of all the arts.

I knew Jimi (Hendrix) and I think that the best thing you could say about Jimi was: there was a person who shouldn't use drugs.

Your mind is totally controlled, it has been stuffed into my mold. And you will do as you are told, until the rights to you are sold.

I wrote a song about dental floss but did anyone's teeth get cleaner?

Don't forget to vote.

You know, people are basically shitty

Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are in my opinion more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality.

Just because somebody hears something you say, or reads something that you write, doesn't mean you've reached them. With reading comprehension being what it is in the U. S., you can safely toss that one out the window. If you want to judge by the listening habits of people who buy records, the first thing they do is put it on and talk over it.

Tobacco is my favorite vegetable.

Guitar playing, as currently understood, has more to do with sports than it does to do with music. It's an Olympic challenge type of situation. The challenges are in the realm of speed, redundancy, choreography, and grooming... ...clouds of educated gnat-notes.

There will never be a nuclear war; there's too much real estate involved.

Science is moving closer to weaponry, and Art is moving closer to commercialism. And never the twain shall meet.

It seems that the problem with government as an institution is uniformly bad, worldwide. It may be the ONLY thing that binds all nations together - the incompetence of all of their governments...The unions are the mafia, which is the CIA, which is the Catholic Church, which is the government, which is what's the difference? It's corrupt! It's the same guys pulling these strings, you know? One day he pulls the string and this lamp comes out, the next say he pulls the string and there's a missile coming out.

If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine - but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you've been bad or good - and CARES about any of it - to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.

There's no reason to assume that my idea of what's better would really be better. I resent it when other people try to inflict their ideas of betterness on me. I don't think they know. And I can't see any authority on the horizon that's got any answers that seem worthwhile. Most of the things that are suggested are probably detrimental to your mental health.

The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own” “Stupidity has a certain charm - ignorance does not” “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” “It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralize the long-range effects of our national stupidity” “Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.

Let's not be too tough on our own ignorance. It's the thing that makes America great. If America weren't incomparably ignorant, how could we have tolerated the last eight years?

The difference between religions and cults is determined by how much real estate is owned.

Modern music is people who can't think signing artists who can't write songs to make records for people who can't hear.

The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of moral quality control programs based on things certain Christians do not like. What if the next bunch of Washington wives demands a large yellow J on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to concealed Zionist doctrine?

who are the brain police?

I'm the devil's advocate. We have our own worshipers.

A drug is neither moral nor immoral - it's a chemical compound. The compound itself is not a menace to society until a human being treats it as if consumption bestowed a temporary license to act like an asshole.

One size does not fit all.

The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on.

Watch out where the Huskies go And don't you eat that yellow snow

This here song might offend some, if it does it's because your dumb.

Gimme the tune. Do I like this tune? Does it sound like another tune that I like? The more familiar it is, the better I like it. Hear those three notes there? Those are the three notes I can sing along with. I like those notes very, very much. Give me a beat. Not a fancy one. Give me a GOOD BEAT -- something I can dance to. It has to go boom-bap, boom-boom-BAP. If it doesn't, I will hate it very, very much. Also, I want it right away -- and then, write me some more songs like that -- over and over and over again, because I'm really into music.

. . . behind each breakaway movement is a breakaway demagogue who will set up his breakaway demagogue government.

If you pick up a guitar and it says, 'take me, I'm yours,' then that's the one for you

Weedly-weedly-wee, make a face, hold your guitar like it's your weenie, point it heavenward, and look like you're really doing something. Then, you get a big ovation while the smoke bombs go off, and the motorized lights in your truss twirl around.

Elmore James only knew one lick, but you had the feeling that he meant it.

I think the music of the Fifties is really good. I suspect it's much better musically than much of what's available now. Not in terms of production, but in terms of content.

Believe it or not, there are places in the world where music is important. There are places in the world where all the arts are a matter of national pride.

If you really love guitar, you're going to spend every waking hour stroking the thing.

I write what I like to write. Those who like to listen to it, listen to it. And the ones who don't, watch football and drink beer, jog, go to discos and so forth. I never claimed to be a man for all seasons.

The creation and destruction of harmonic and 'statistical' tensions is essential to the maintenance of compositional drama. Any composition (or improvisation) which remains consonant and 'regular' throughout is, for me, equivalent to watching a movie with only 'good guys' in it, or eating cottage cheese.

Moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon.

Children are naive-they trust everyone. School is bad enough, but, if you put a child anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you're asking for trouble.

The crux of the biscuit is: If it entertains you, fine. Enjoy it. If it doesn't, then blow it out your ass. I do it to amuse myself. If I like it, I release it. If somebody else likes it, that's a bonus.

Listen honey, would I lie to you to get in your pants?

Beauty is a pair of shoes that makes you wanna die.

Jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny.

If we cannot be free, we can at least be cheap

Kid's heads are filled with so many nonfacts that when they get out of school they're totally unprepared to do anything. They can't read, they can't write, they can't think. Talk about child abuse. The U.S. school system as a whole qualifies.

The most abundant element in the Universe is stupidity

The Ultimate Rule ought to be: 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchin'; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty. The more your musical experience, the easier it is to define for yourself what you like and what you don't like. American radio listeners, raised on a diet of _____ (fill in the blank), have experienced a musical universe so small they cannot begin to know what they like.

The kerosene record player is not a very efficient device.

In order to deviate successfully, one has to have at least a passing acquaintance with whatever norm one expects to deviate from.

Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read.

The minute you use the drugs, and you do something that interferes with the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of the guy next door, you're a criminal, and you ought to be punished for that especially if you're in a position where your actions could affect large numbers of people. Being a doctor, a legislator, a judge, an airline pilot, where somebody's life depends on you.

Did you ever consider that LSD was really one of the most dangerous drugs ever manufactured because the people who took it turned into yuppies?

Well the thing is that under the [Ronald] Reagan administration, excesses have occurred in terms of over regulating certain types of behavior, and excesses have occurred in the opposite direction, in de-regulating other types of behavior. As a matter of fact, if they continue to regulate the airlines, we might have safer skies, and if they slack off on the radio, we might have better radio. If they just use it as a threat, eventually there's going to be another test case like the one that the 7 dirty words ruling came out of, and basically, its extortion.

So many books, so little time.

It's a despicable thing to share your personal inner torment for money.

The problem with drugs is that most of the people that use the drugs, use it as a license to be an asshole.

I think that if you use the so-called "strong words" you'll get your point across faster and you can save a lot of beating around the bush. Why are people afraid of words? Sometimes the dumbest thing that gets said makes the point for you.