George Clinton Quotes & Sayings

Another time, he blew up his house in Bel Air. Someone was doing drugs there and they left the ether open. The fumes are like wavy cartoon lines; they find fire and then the fire follows the fumes back to the source and explodes. When it's going critical, you can hear it go up in a whistle. Sly was back in a corner of his house, in a bathroom, and the ether had drifted from the kitchen. When he lit the pipe, it blew up the part of the house he was in - it was an addition, and it separated from the rest of the structure. When the smoke cleared, the bathroom had fallen clean off. He was standing on the edge of the house as cars drove by. He was standing on a ledge about six inches wide, with the door heading into the kitchen right next to him. He slid back into the house, closed the door, and stayed like that for more than a year. — George Clinton

If you got a booty, you're going to dance to disco, funk, you know, whatever's going on. Funk is going to be involved in it. — George Clinton

The words I use too often are X-rated, something an old man like me shouldn't be talking about anyway. — George Clinton

Look both ways before you cross my mind. — George Clinton

Free your mind... and your ass will follow. — George Clinton

The desired effect is what you get when you improve your interplanetary funksmanship. — George Clinton

Hip-hop is getting to the point now where they are going to start sounding like Al Jarreau or Bobby McFerrin or some of the other poets. Some of the better rappers can rap real fast without even melodies. It'll get to that same point. — George Clinton

The bigger the headache, the bigger the pill. — George Clinton

I worked in a barbershop. I used to make the waves in the brother's hair, you know? Like, Nat King Cole, Sugar Ray Robinson. — George Clinton

I'm always surprised that I'm still around funk and that people are still into it. — George Clinton

Absorb youth and you will be absorbed by youth. Take on new influences without fear and you need not fear what is new. Change the people around you by changing the people around you. — George Clinton

But whoever seriously considers the immense extent of territory comprehended within the limits of the United States, together with the variety of its climates, productions, and commerce, the difference of extent, and number of inhabitants in all; the dissimilitude of interest, morals, and politics, in almost every one, will receive it as an intuitive truth, that a consolidated republican form of government therein, can never form a perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to you and your posterity, for to these objects it must be directed. This unkindred legislature therefore, composed of interests opposite and dissimilar in their nature, will in its exercise, emphatically be like a house divided against itself. — George Clinton

Put a glide in your stride, a dip in yo' hip and come on up to the mothership — George Clinton

Funk 'em, just to see the look on their face. — George Clinton

I used to skip school to go there when I was growing up in Newark, ... I saw the Flamingos, the Heartbeats, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Jackson. — George Clinton

I think a lot of people really have religious overtones of having come from somewhere. I mean, even the whole concept of religion is kind of alien. — George Clinton

Style is whatever you want to do, if you can do it with confidence. — George Clinton

I was at the Apollo Theater all the time, skipping school, and I worked in a barbershop. That's how I started with doo-wop. Now I've come full circle. I did all kinds of music. I used to work on Broadway and Tin Pan Alley. — George Clinton

When I hear music that parents hate, or older musicians hate, I know that's the new music. When I hear older people saying, 'I hate Rap or Techno' I rush to it. — George Clinton

Why must I feel like that? Why must I chase the cat? — George Clinton

Whoever controls the flow of information dictates our perceptions and perspectives; whoever controls the news shapes our destiny. — George Clinton

I pick up on styles, way before they get popular, pretty much before young kids do. I see 'em coming. — George Clinton

Funk is fun. And it's also a state of mind, ... But it's all the ramifications of that state of mind. Once you've done the best you can, funk it! — George Clinton

You can rebel against everything adults say. When I want to find out what the new music is, I find out what parents hate. — George Clinton

Ain't nothin' but a party! — George Clinton

If it wasn't for flash backs, I wouldn't remember anything at all. — George Clinton

Disco is funky when you take one record at a time. It's just that they narrowed it down to one beat to try to corner the market on a particular music. And when you do that with rhythm - talk about something that will get on your nerves. Try to make love with one stroke. Somebody will tell you to fax it in. — George Clinton

I'm adventurous and I'll eat anything. I eat a fair amount of junk food, but not junky junk food. Nothin' colorful. I mean, there's junk food, then there's colorful junk food. Stuff in cheap little packages. I never eat nothin' pink. I'll do the occasional jelly sandwich, but when I eat junk food I'll balance it out with prune juice so it don't stay around long. I drink a quart of prune juice every other day. Some chicks can't stand the sight of it, but I'd rather lose a little pussy than be stuffed with shit. — George Clinton

Record companies would rather you stay dumb, not even think of it as a business, so they can either rip you off or get you out of the way in five years to make way for the new groups. — George Clinton