Frank Zappa was an American musician, composer, and bandleader who gained fame in the 1960s and 1970s for his unique and experimental approach to rock music. He was born on December 21, 1940, in Baltimore, Maryland, and died on December 4, 1993, in Los Angeles, California.
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Zappa was a prolific composer and recorded over 60 albums during his career. His music was characterized by complex rhythms, unusual time signatures, and a wide variety of musical genres, including rock, jazz, classical, and avant-garde. He was also known for his satirical and humorous lyrics, which often dealt with controversial and taboo subjects.
Zappa was a highly skilled musician, and his guitar playing was particularly notable. He was also a gifted producer and engineer, and he produced many of his own albums.
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Zappa’s influence on popular music cannot be overstated. He inspired countless musicians and bands with his innovative approach to music and his willingness to push boundaries. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and his music continues to be celebrated and studied by fans and musicians alike.
This is a list I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Here’s some of my absolute favorite quotes by the brilliantly sharp mind of Frank Zappa.
Famous Frank Zappa Quotes
1. “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”
2. “A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”
3. “So many books, so little time.”
4. “Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.”
5. “Music is the only religion that delivers the goods.”
6. “The universe consists of 5% protons, 5% neutrons, 5% electrons and 85% morons.”
7. “There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.”
8. “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”
9. “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.”
10. “Government is the Entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.”
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11. “Art is making something out of nothing, and selling it.”
12. “It’s better to have something to remember than anything to regret.”
13. “One size does not fit all.”
14. “Don’t forget to vote.”
15. “Don’t eat the yellow snow.”
16. “If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”
17. “Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be.”
18. “I don’t want to spend my life explaining myself. You either get it, or you don’t.”
19. “There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we’d all love one another.”
20. “Jazz isn’t dead. It just smells funny.”
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21. “Shut Up and Play your Guitar.”
22. “It gets harder the more you know. Because the more you find out the uglier everything seems.”
23. “The most important thing to do in your life is to not interfere with somebody else’s life.”
24. “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline – it helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but in the very least you need a beer.”
25. “I’m not black, but there’s a whole lot of times I wish I could say I’m not white.”
26. “To me absurdity is the only reality.”
27. “Moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon.”
28. “The most abundant element in the Universe is stupidity.”
29. “All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.”
30. “Stupidity has a certain charm – ignorance does not.”
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31. “Love of my life, I love you so. Love of my life, don’t ever go.”
32. “The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own.”
33. “There is no hell. There is only France.”
34. “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.”
35. “Music is the most physically inspiring of all the arts.”
36. “I can take about an hour on the tower of power, as long as I gets a little golden shower.”
37. “I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.”
38. “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.”
39. “Ram it up your poop chute.”
40. “Tobacco is my favorite vegetable.”
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41. “A wise man once said, never discuss philosophy or politics in a disco environment.”
42. “I enjoy irritating the people who enjoy being irritated.”
43. “The whole Universe is a large joke. Everything in the Universe are just subdivisions of this joke. So why take anything too serious.”
44. “The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.”
45. “The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar; now that’s my idea of a good time.”
46. “Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?”
47. “I’m probably more famous for sitting on the toilet than for anything else that I do.”
48. “Drugs will turn you into your parents.”
49. “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.”
50. “The most important thing in art is The Frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively – because without this humble appliance, you can’t know where The Art stops and The Real World begins.”
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51. “The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe!”
52. “Don’t mind your make-up, you’d better make your mind up.”
53. “There will never be a nuclear war; there’s too much real estate involved.”
54. “Take the Kama Sutra. How many people died from the Kama Sutra as opposed to the Bible? Who wins?”
55. “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.”
56. “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.”
57. “This is a stupid song and that’s the way I like it.”
58. “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.”
59. “My balls feel like a pair of maracas.”
60. “Call any vegetable and the chances are good that the vegetable will respond to you.”
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61. “If classical music is the state of the art, then the arts are in a sad state.”
62. “Information doesn’t kill you.”
63. “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.”
64. “Anything played wrong twice in a row is the beginning of an arrangement.”
65. “Whatever you have to do to have a good time, let’s get on with it, so long as it doesn’t cause a murder.”
66. “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.”
67. “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.”
68. “Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.”
69. “Rock music was never written for or performed for conservative tastes.”
70. “Maybe you should stay with your mama, you’re kind of stupid and ugly, too.”
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71. “The computer can’t tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what’s missing is the eyebrows.”
72. “In order to deviate successfully, one has to have at least a passing acquaintance with whatever norm one expects to deviate from.”
73. “The last election just laid the foundation of the next 500 years of Dark Ages.”
74. “Just because somebody hears something you say, or reads something that you write, doesn’t mean you’ve reached them.”
75. “Mr. Gorbachev has apparently stumbled onto one of the best-kept secrets in recent Soviet history: Communism doesn’t work.”
76. “Republicans stand for raw, unbridled evil and greed and ignorance smothered in balloons and ribbons.”
77. “Jazz is the music of unemployment.”
78. “If we can’t be free at least we can be cheap.”
79. “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.”
80. “Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are in my opinion more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality.”
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81. “Beware of the fish people, they are the true enemy.”
82. “She is an office girl, her name is Betty. Her favorite group is Helen Reddy.”
83. “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.”
84. “I’m the devil’s advocate. We have our own worshipers.”
85. “If your children ever find out how lame you really are, they’ll murder you in your sleep.”
86. “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.”
87. “Sometimes you got to get sick before you can feel better.”
88. “You are what you is, you is what you am, you ain’t what you’re not. So see what you got?”
89. “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?”
90. “The plumber he says, never flush a tampon. This is great information, cost me half a weeks pay.”
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91. “Nobody looks good with brown lipstick on.”
92. “I ain’t the type for begging, I am not the type to plead. If she don’t change those evil ways, I’m gonna make her bleed.”
93. “Cocaine decisions that you make today, will mean nothing later on when you get nose decay.”
94. “I think you should leave it up to the parent, because not all parents want to keep their children totally ignorant.”
95. “I want a horny little Jewish princess.”
96. “Anyone who is disturbed by the idea of newts in a nightclub is potentially dangerous.”
97. “Listen honey, would I lie to you to get in your pants?”
98. “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.”
99. “My guitar wants to kill your mama.”
100. “Do your job and do it right, life’s a ball, TV tonight.”