Frank Zappa Quotes

114 Sourced Quotes

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

Frank Zappa
Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read.

Frank Zappa
The U.S. is a mere pup tent of a civilization. We've got two hundred years of stupidity behind us and we think we're right up there with everyone else who's been doing it for thousands of years.

Frank Zappa
Watch out where the huskies go,
and don't you eat that yellow snow.

Frank Zappa
Hey, you know something people?
I'm not black,
But there's a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I'm not white.

Frank Zappa
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I 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 oozin' out
From your TV set.

Frank Zappa
After all, he wrote this book here, and in the book it says he made us all to be just like him! So if we're dumb, then God is dumb — and maybe even a little ugly on the side.

Frank Zappa
There are three things that smell of fish. One of them is fish. The other two are growing on you!

Frank Zappa
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.

Frank Zappa
I think it's really tragic when people get serious about stuff. It's such an absurdity to take anything really seriously … I make an honest attempt not to take anything seriously: I worked that attitude out about the time I was eighteen, I mean, what does it all mean when you get right down to it, what's the story here? Being alive is so weird.

Frank Zappa
Their stupidity does not amaze me, its when they're smart that amazes me. It's baffling whenever you find someone who's smart — incredible. Soon you'll have zoos for such things.

Frank Zappa
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…

Frank Zappa
Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read.

Frank Zappa
I have four children, and I want them to grow up in a country that has a working First Amendment.

Frank Zappa
Why should I smile when I'm sitting here with you?

Frank Zappa
We're not talking light-hearted foolishness here — when we go for stupid we go for BIG STUPID — like people who shoot at you on the freeway, or the Rambos and Rambo-ettes who blow people away in shopping malls and fast-food restaurants with automatic weapons.

Frank Zappa
Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.

Frank Zappa
I detest 'love lyrics.' I think one of the causes of bad mental health in the United States is that people have been raised on 'love lyrics.

Frank Zappa
For the record, folks; I never took a shit on stage and the closest I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973.

Frank Zappa
The sad thing about the Sixties was the weak-mindedness of the so-called radicals and the way that they managed to get co-opted. I think one of the things that helped that happen was LSD. It's the only chemical known to mankind that will convert a hippy to a yuppie.

Frank Zappa
All the old history was written for the amusement of the ruling classes. The lower classes couldn't read, and their rulers didn't care about remembering what happened to them.

Frank Zappa
I think it is good that books still exist, but they do make me sleepy.

Frank Zappa
I can't talk to you about music because you don't know anything about music. I can talk to you about politics or sociology and all that peripheral stuff, but I can't talk to you about music. There's not enough information in common that I could say to you so you'd be able to understand. Besides, the people who read OUI don't give a fuck about music anyway.

Frank Zappa
If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.

Frank Zappa
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.

Frank Zappa
Music is the only religion that delivers the goods on earth.

Frank Zappa
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.

Frank Zappa
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.

Frank Zappa
I have an important message to deliver to all the cute people all over the world. If you're out there and you're cute, maybe you're beautiful. I just want to tell you somethin' — there's more of us UGLY MOTHERFUCKERS than you are, hey-y, so watch out.

Frank Zappa
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?

Frank Zappa