Zappa Quotes & Sayings

Government is the Entertainment division of the military-industrial complex. — Frank Zappa

Sometimes you got to get sick before you can feel better. — Frank Zappa

Gag me with a spoon! — Moon Unit Zappa

My father would often work all night and sleep during the day, so for us, dinner might be pancakes, and breakfast might be beef stroganoff. — Ahmet Zappa

I don't want to see any religious people in public office because they're working for another boss. — Frank Zappa

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. — Frank Zappa

How strange, when your father's wearing women's clothes and platform shoes, that a pair of loafers looks incredible. — Moon Unit Zappa

The lifestyle that I have is probably neither desirable nor useful to most people. — Frank Zappa

The Ultimate Rule ought to be: 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchin'; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty. The more your musical experience, the easier it is to define for yourself what you like and what you don't like. American radio listeners, raised on a diet of _ (fill in the blank), have experienced a musical universe so small they cannot begin to know what they like. — Frank Zappa

Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be. — Frank Zappa

I'm the devil's advocate. We have our own worshipers. — Frank Zappa

There are only two things to remember. Number one ... Don't Stop, and number two ... Keep Going! — Frank Zappa

As long as you're just smart enough to do a job and just dumb enough to swallow what they feed you, you're gonna be alright. But if you go beyond that then you're gonna have these grave doubts that give you stomach problems, headachesmake you want to go out and do something else. So, I believe that schools mechanically and very specifically try and breed out any hint of creative thought in the kids that are coming out. — Frank Zappa

Without deviance from normality, there can be no progress. — Frank Zappa

I liked a lot of the things other people liked - Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Van Halen, AC/DC - but if I compared it to my dad's music, there just seemed to be elements missing. — Dweezil Zappa

Roller-skates and disco are a lot of fun, I'm much too young and stupid to operate a gun. — Frank Zappa

I was his "little girl with the William Burroughs mind," his "secret fairy," "female Frank Zappa" and "window onto a magical world." He said I fell to earth, leaving wing-marks on the ceilings of our dreams. — Jalina Mhyana

Cocaine decisions that you make today, will mean nothing later on when you get nose decay. — Frank Zappa

And, you know, my dad would show me some things sometimes, but the best things that I got to do were to actually see really good players play up close. That gives you an idea of fingering and technique and what not. — Dweezil Zappa

Nobody looks good with brown lipstick on. — Frank Zappa

Certainly Apple has improved enormously. At the beginning, the sampling rate was an issue for me, but a bigger argument was over digital rights, which I had. — Gail Zappa

Is this something new, having people stomp on you? Is it what I need to do for your pleasure? — Frank Zappa

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

There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. — Frank Zappa

Classical music is this music that was written by a bunch of dead people a long time ago. — Frank Zappa

I wrote a song about dental floss but did anyone's teeth get cleaner? — Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa ... was Beethoven for insane rock guys. — Scott Ian

I want a hairy little Jewish Princess with a brand new nose, who knows where it goes. — 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

When I was growing up, when I was 11 years old I was listening to The Mothers of Invention. You know, I mean I was a Frank Zappa fan in Arkansas. — Billy Bob Thornton

While your children are sleeping, your puppy is crappin'. — Frank Zappa

It's two o'clock in the morning, they're not going to get any nooky anyway, so this one guy and the guy with the t-shirt guy started sniffing the girls panties. — Frank Zappa

My parents told us how they felt but never imposed their beliefs on us, although I appreciate I got a healthy sense of democracy from them. — Ahmet Zappa

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. — Frank Zappa

They's making it worse, the labor movement got the mafia curse. — 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

Behind each breakaway movement is a breakaway demagogue who will set up his breakaway demagogue government. — Frank Zappa

When we had to do book reports, I would pick a book that no one read and just make it up and turn that in. I got praised for my imagination. — Ahmet Zappa

I'm not going to be Bill Clinton and say I never inhaled. I did inhale. I liked tobacco a lot better. — Frank Zappa

The price of meat has just gone up and your old lady has just gone down. — Frank Zappa

He just got in the car, but the batteries dead. So he asks to use the phone and she gives him some head. — Frank Zappa

Anything Anytime Anyplace For No Reason At All (or AAAFNRAA) — Frank Zappa

This is a stupid song and that's the way I like it. — Frank Zappa

I think what my father appreciated was the science experiment of life. He had these kids, and they had their own experiences. He wanted us to discover the world for ourselves. — Ahmet Zappa

A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open. — Frank Zappa

The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of moral quality control programs based on things certain Christians do not like. What if the next bunch of Washington wives demands a large yellow J on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to concealed Zionist doctrine? — Frank Zappa

He likes to flirt with all the boys in the class. — Frank Zappa

If you think about how long it takes to write a piece of music for an orchestra, it's outrageous to me, outrageous. — Gail Zappa

Americans like to talk about (or be told about) Democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an 'inconvenience.' We have opted instead for an authoritarian system disguised as a Democracy. We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there. — Frank Zappa

Disco boy, no one understands, but thank the lord you still got hands. — Frank Zappa

Donnie and Marie can both take a bite. — Frank Zappa

Hendrix is one of the most revolutionary figures in today's pop culture, musically and sociologically. — Frank Zappa

All your children are poor unfortunate victims of systems beyond their control — Frank Zappa

Power will be maintained by the groovy guy or gal who gets the most media coverage for his sleaze. Naturally, his friends in various businesses will do okay, too. — Frank Zappa

Schools train you to be ignorant with style [ ... ] they prepare you to be a usable victim for a military industrial complex that needs manpower. As long as you're just smart enough to do a job and just dumb enough to swallow what they feed you, you're going to be alright [ ... ] So I believe that schools mechanically and very specifically try and breed out any hint of creative thought in the kids that are coming up. — Frank Zappa

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. — 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

Your own experience keeps taking you towards something. My book adds the hope that it's a better something. — Moon Unit Zappa

Guitar playing, as currently understood, has more to do with sports than it does to do with music. It's an Olympic challenge type of situation. The challenges are in the realm of speed, redundancy, choreography, and grooming ... clouds of educated gnat-notes. — Frank Zappa

Anybody who wants religion is welcome to it, as far as I'm concerned
I support your right to enjoy it. However, I would appreciate it if you exhibited more respect for the rights of those people who do not wish to share your dogma, rapture, or necrodestination. — Frank Zappa

Elmore James only knew one lick, but you had the feeling that he meant it. — Frank Zappa

I think pop music has done more for oral intercourse than anything else that has ever happened, and vice versa. — Frank Zappa

Well Mike, I'm abnormal. — Frank Zappa

Broken hearts are for assholes, are you an asshole? — Frank Zappa

The problem with composers is that they are the most unrequired job in America. — Gail Zappa

Michael is Janet and Janet is Michael. — Frank Zappa

Most people don't bother about their friends in the vegetable kingdom. — 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

It's one thing to write the music, it's another thing to write it down, it's another thing to play it, and something else altogether again to learn how to play it. These are the elements that are fascinating, and, you know, move my world. — Gail Zappa

I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white. — Frank Zappa

My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult. — Tom Waits

There is no such thing as a dirty word. Nor is there a word so powerful, that it's going to send the listener to the lake of fire upon hearing it. — Frank Zappa

Zoyd remembered her...as a tall florid girl in a minidress that bore the image, from neck to hemline, of Frank Zappa's face, thus linking her in Zoyd's mind somehow with Mount Rushmore. — Thomas Pynchon

Producing satire is kind of hopeless because of the literacy rate of the American public. — Frank Zappa

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? — Frank Zappa

The Silvertop and the Goldtop both had subtlety where it was needed but lots of definition as well. I liked the different voicings of the distortion/fuzz elements. — Dweezil Zappa

I hit you and I beat you and I told you that I love you. — Frank Zappa

Wowie zowie, love me do. Wowie zowie, and I'll love you, too. — Frank Zappa

Let's not be too tough on our own ignorance. It's the thing that makes
America great. If America weren't incomparably ignorant, how could we
have tolerated the last eight years? — Frank Zappa

They tried to make me go to Catholic school, too. I lasted a very short time. When the penguin came after me with a ruler, I was out of there. — Frank Zappa

Catholic girls with tiny little mustaches. — Frank Zappa

If there's anything more mortifying than being famous at 14, it's being washed up right after. — Moon Unit Zappa

Asked random questions about the First Amendment and how they would like to have it applied, if you believe in polls at all, the average American wants no part of it. But if you ask, 'What if we threw the Constitution away tomorrow?' the answer is 'No, that would be bad!' But living under the Constitution is another story altogether. — Frank Zappa

He took a dog-doo snow cone and stuffed it in my right eye. He took a dog-doo snow cone and stuffed it in my other eye. — Frank Zappa

Everything on this planet has something to do with music. Music functions in the realm of sculptured air. — Frank Zappa

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

I mean, no offense, but I don't really see why, like guitar players from Creed, or something like that, are on the cover of guitar magazines. Almost anybody can sit down and learn to play those songs. — Dweezil Zappa

I didn't read at all until I was 12. I just couldn't. It was too frustrating. — Ahmet Zappa

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. — Frank Zappa

When you have a single composer writing his work, it shouldn't be doled out in singles based on the length of a piece. — Gail Zappa

Being interviewed is one of the most abnormal things that you can do to somebody else. It's two steps removed from the Inquisition. — Frank Zappa

The hardest and worst interview that I have ever done was with Frank Zappa. — Nina Blackwood

Just be glad you don't live in one of those little countries where at this very moment, music is severely restricted, or as it is in Iran, totally illegal. — Frank Zappa

So many books, so little time. — Frank Zappa

The bigger the cushion, the better the pushin'. — Frank Zappa

I would ask my parents something, but then go to my siblings. We were encouraged to bounce ideas off everyone. — Ahmet Zappa

I've got a new relationship and I'm trapped in this old life. — Moon Unit 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

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 got married about three years ago again to a wonderful German woman. Her name is Monika and she is beautiful. She is one of the biggest women Zappa fans I have ever met in my life. — Jimmy Carl Black