Frank Zappa > Quotes

“call any vegetable,
call it by name,
and the chances are good
that the vegetable will respond to you”
― Frank Zappa

“I think that any artistic decision that is based on whether or not you are going to make money it is not really an artistic decision. It is a business decision. And there are a lot of things that I can do to earn a living and a lot of things that I have already done to earn a living which produce the amount of capital needed to do this project. I came here to spend money on an English orchestra and record my music, so I can take it home and I can listen to it. And... if somebody else likes that kind of stuff, I will make it available on a record so that they can hear it. That is my part of the public service of spending the money to make this event happen. No foundation grant, no government assistance, no corporation, no comittee. Just a crazy guy who spent the money to hire English musicians to do a concert at the Barbican and make an album for Barking Pumpkin Records.”
― Frank Zappa

“Ohne Abweichung von der Norm ist Fortschritt nicht möglich.”
― Frank Zappa

“Once upon a time
Somebody say to me
(This is a dog talkin' now)
What is your Conceptual Continuity?
Well, I told him right then
(Fido said)
It should be easy to see
The crux of the biscuit
Is the Apostrophe(')”
― Frank Zappa, Apostrophe

“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

“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 so afraid of words? Sometimes the dumbest thing that gets said makes the point for you.”
― Frank Zappa

“Music is the best.”
― Frank Zappa

“Well, in this world of basic stereotyping, give a guy a big nose and some weird hair and he is capable of anything.”
― Frank Zappa

“The white zone is for loading and unloading only.
If you gotta load or unload, go to the white zone...”
― Frank Zappa

“The really big news of the eighties is the stampede to regurgitate mildly camouflaged musical styles of previous decades, in ever-shrinking cycles of 'nostalgia.
(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. When you compute the length of time between The Event and The Nostalgia For The Event, the span seems to be about a year less in each cycle. Eventually within the next quarter of a century, the nostalgia cycles will be so close together that people will not be able to take a step without being nostalgic for the one they just took. At that point, everything stops. Death by Nostalgia.)”
― Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

“Some people... SOME PEOPLE like cupcakes better (but) I for one, could care LESS for them!”
― Frank Zappa

“I'll take a drive to Beverly Hills
Just before dawn
An' knock the little jockeys
Off the rich people's lawn
An' before they get up
I'll be gone, I'll be gone
Before they get up
I'll be knocking the jockeys off the lawn”
― Frank Zappa, Apostrophe

“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

“The poodle bites ; The poodle chews it.”
― Frank Zappa, Over-Nite Sensation

“Well right about that time, people,
A fur trapper
Who was strictly from commercial
(Strictly Commershil)
Had the unmedicated audacity to jump up from behind my igyaloo
(Peek-a-Boo Woo-ooo-ooo)
And he started in to whippin' on my fav'rite baby seal
With a lead-filled snow shoe . . .”
― Frank Zappa, Apostrophe

“...be a jerk - go to work, be a jerk - go to work, be a jerk - go to work, be a jerk - go to work, do your job, and do it right, LIFE'S A BALL, *TV* tonight.”
― Frank Zappa

“This has to be the disease for you
Now scientists call this disease
Bromidrosis
But us regular folks
Who might wear tennis shoes
Or an occasional python boot
Know this exquisite little inconvenience
By the name of:
Stink Foot”
― Frank Zappa, Apostrophe

“so many books, so little time”
― Frank Zappa

“Now air can get through.”
― Frank Zappa

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

“In the future, etiquette will become more and more important. That doesn't mean knowing which fork to pick up—I mean basic consideration for the rights of other animals (human beings included) and the willingness, whenever practical, to tolerate the other guy's idiosyncracies.
We live in a world where people preach at you constantly (like now, even)—telling you not to be fat, you can't smoke, you can't eat butter, sugar will kill you, everything is bad for you—especially sex.
Every natural human urge has been thwarted in one way or another, so that some cocksucker gets to make a dollar off your guilt.
Certain people buy into this because they don't want to rock the boat. Unfortunately, adaptation of this sort requires that the adaptee willingly destroys his own personality.”
― Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

“The biggest threat to America today is not communism. It's moving America toward a fascist theocracy. (CNN's Crossfire Show in the year 1986)”
― Frank Zappa

“Non esiste l'inferno. Esiste la Francia”
― Frank Zappa

“A mind is like a parachute. It works better when it's open!”
― Frank Zappa, Frank Zappa

“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work unless it’s open.”
― Frank Zappa

“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. You have to put a 'box' around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall?

If John Cage, for instance, says, "I'm putting a contact microphone on my throat, and I'm going to drink carrot juice, and that's my composition," then his gurgling qualifies as his composition because he put a frame around it and said so. "Take it or leave it, I now will this to be music." After that it's a matter of taste. Without the frame-as-announced, it's a guy swallowing carrot juice.”
― frank zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

“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, Frank Zappa

“Çok fazla kitap, çok az zaman...”
― Frank Zappa

“I feel that if you live life in pursuit of 'certification,' 'appreciation’, or ‘compensation' in any form from your parents, you're making a big mistake. The sooner you can say, “Okay, they're them and I'm me, and let's make the best of it," the better off you're going to be.
We could improve worldwide mental health if we acknowledged that parents can make you crazy.
I believe that, to a certain extent, kids get weird because their parents made them weird. Parents have more to do with making their children weird than TV or rock and roll records.
The only other thing that makes them weirder than TV and parents is religion and drugs.”
― Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

“Failure is one of those things that 'serious people' dread. Invariably, the persons most likely to be crippled by this fear are people who have convinced themselves that they are SO bitchen they shouldn't ever be placed in a situation where they might fail.
Failure is nothing to get upset about. It's a fairly normal condition; an inevitability in ninety-nine percent of all human undertakings. Success is rare—that's why people get so cranked up about it.”
― Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book