Frank Zappa Quotes

114 Sourced Quotes

Let's not be too rough on our own ignorance; it's what makes America great!

Frank Zappa
When God created Republicans, he gave up on everything else.

Frank Zappa
It's better to have something to remember than anything to regret.

Frank Zappa
I'm a conservative, and you might not like that, but I am, and the fact of the matter is, this bill that they're talking about in Maryland is stupid.

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

Frank Zappa
You say your life's a bum deal 'n yer up against the wall. Well, people, you ain't even got no deal at all. 'Cause what they do in Washington. They just takes care of Number One. An' Number One ain't you. You ain't even Number Two!

Frank Zappa
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.

Frank Zappa
I think that if a person doesn't feel cynical then they're out of phase with the 20th century. Being cynical is the only way to deal with modern civilization — you can't just swallow it whole.

Frank Zappa
If a person wants to write music and lyrics, he has a perfect right to express his views on a certain subject. I would feel wrong if I were to express anything that I didn't believe in. 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.

Frank Zappa
Do you think you are protecting somebody by taking away seven words?

Frank Zappa
Most people don't think I'm rational. They're too busy featuring their hurt. They find it irrational not to feature your hurt. That's how fucked up they are.

Frank Zappa
Scientology, how about that? You hold on to the tin cans and then this guy asks you a bunch of questions, and if you pay enough money you get to join the master race. How's that for a religion?

Frank Zappa
The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents — because they have a tame child-creature in their house.

Frank Zappa
Organized religions by their very natures are misleading.

Frank Zappa
The biggest threat to America today is not communism. It's moving America toward a fascist theocracy, and everything that's happened during the Reagan administration is steering us right down that pipe … I really think that. … When you have a government that prefers a certain moral code derived from a certain religion and that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain religious point of view, and if that code happens to be very, very right wing, almost toward Attila the Hun...

Frank Zappa
A wise man once said, "never discuss philosophy or politics in a disco environment."

Frank Zappa
Certification from one source or another seems to be the most important thing to people all over the world. A piece of paper from a school that says you're smart, a pat on the head from your parents that says you're good or some reinforcement from your peers that makes you think what you're doing is worthwhile. People are just waiting around to get certified.

Frank Zappa
And it's the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin' "You can't understand me!"
'N all that other jazz they hand me
In the papers and TV and
All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day
Each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
Because the color of your skin
Just don't appeal to him
(No matter if it's black or white)
Because he's out for blood tonight.

Frank Zappa
We live in a very special time right now. At no other time in history has there been such mass disillusionment in terms of reliance on governing functions. Most people don't want to come to terms with that. It's been proven over and over again that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes, but most people don't like to look at naked emperors. In the process of turning around to avert their eyes, they saw the discotheques and a few other things and latched onto them.

Frank Zappa
My solos are speech-influenced rhythmically; and harmonically, they're either pentatonic, or poly-scale oriented. And there's the mixolydian mode that I also use a lot... But I'm more interested in melodic things I think the biggest challenge when you go to play a solo is trying to invent a melody on the spot.

Frank Zappa
The most important thing to do in your life is to not interfere with somebody else's life.

Frank Zappa
Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are in my opinion more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality. Freedom of speech, freedom of religious thought, and the right to due process for composers, performers and retailers are imperiled if the PMRC and the major labels consummate this nasty bargain.

Frank Zappa
So much gets lost in the translation. Even if you sat there listening to it with a microscope, there's no way you're gonna find out what it means.

Frank Zappa
There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something, we'd all love one another.

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

Frank Zappa
Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

Frank Zappa
Take the Kama Sutra. How many people died from the Kama Sutra, as opposed to the Bible? Who wins?

Frank Zappa
The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they're property.

Frank Zappa
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. One good believable song about some guy's girlfriend and how they broke up — a sincere one — is better than twenty albums of English rock that's ever been produced.

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

Frank Zappa