Frank Zappa - People Quotes

34 Sourced Quotes

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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
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
A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound. The problem comes in when people who take drugs treat them like a license to behave like an asshole.

Frank Zappa
I'll tell you what classical music is, for those of you who don't know. Classical music is this music that was written by a bunch of dead people a long time ago. And it's formula music, the same as top forty music is formula music. In order to have a piece be classical, it has to conform to academic standards that were the current norms of that day and age … I think that people are entitled to be amused, and entertained. If they see deviations from this classical norm, it's probably good for their mental health.

Frank Zappa
You know, people are basically shitty. It's when they prove it over and over again that it gets obnoxious.

Frank Zappa
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.

Frank Zappa
The richest people in the world aren't particularly smart or happy. And the happiest people in the world aren't particularly smart or rich.… That leaves me making music. But we can't talk about that.

Frank Zappa
The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has the medieval aroma, like the days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball... I find this unfathomable, but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing the bassoon.

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

Frank Zappa
People make a lot of fuss about my kids having such supposedly 'strange names', but the fact is that no matter what first names I might have given them, it is the last name that is going to get them in trouble.

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 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
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.

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

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
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
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
The lifestyle that I have is probably neither desirable nor useful to most people. Most people are probably better off getting the certification they desire and spindling their lives away the way they're doing. I don't think they'd enjoy living any other way. There are millions of people who acquire all sorts of wonderful feelings from watching a football game and drinking a bottle of beer. It makes them really happy. Doesn't do shit for me. But for them it's life itself. As long as they can believe in the beer and the football, then they've really got something. And it's probably more useful to them than religion. So why take it away? Why tell them what's really going on? Let 'em be happy.

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
People have preposterous ideas about what those songs are about and what the music means. They start spouting all this shit that's so far off the mark, it's revolting. But if that's how they derive pleasure, who am I to deprive them of it? Let 'em enjoy it. It's there for their edification. But total comprehension is out of the question.

Frank Zappa
I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news... if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right.

Frank Zappa
Fact of the matter is, there is no hip world, there is no straight world. There's a world, you see which has people in it who believe a variety of different things. Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence.

Frank Zappa
I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.

Frank Zappa
I've smoked ten marijuana cigarettes in my life, and probably the last time I had one near my face was twelve, fifteen years ago. And the reason I did was because, since I do smoke, people would say, "Here, smoke this, you'll get high." So I smoked it, and it gave me a sore throat and made me sleepy. And I must either presume that that's what high means, or something was wrong. But I've never had a positive result from smoking marijuana. It just wasn't my cup of tea. And I never used LSD, never used cocaine, never used heroin or any of that other stuff.

Frank Zappa