Your Favourite Frank Zappa Quotes!

Post your best FZ quotes:

Edited by Ancient Tree - June 24 2012 at 14:27

The Ultimate Rule ought to be: 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchin'; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's sh*tty. 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

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

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... - Frank Zappa

The creation and destruction of harmonic and 'statistical' tensions is essential to the maintenance of compositional drama. Any composition (or improvisation) which remains consistent and 'regular' throughout is, for me, equivalent to watching a movie with only 'good guys' in it, or eating cottage cheese. - Frank Zappa

"All the best music has already been written by guys in wigs and stuff"

"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream"

"If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library"

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible"


Edited by zravkapt - June 24 2012 at 17:41

I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe. 

In front of congress and responding to attempts by the PMRC to instigate a ratings system for all rock albums with regards the suitability of their lyrics for children:

The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years, dealing with the interpretation-al and enforce-mental problems inherent in the proposal's design. It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment Issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation.

Many of these quotes are stupid. 

I always thought Zappa coined "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture", but apparently he didn't. Oh well. So I'll go with this, which is more or less the philosophy I try to live by:

SaltyJon wrote: 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

The T wrote: Many of these quotes are stupid.

^You are forgiven. One of the stupidest things Frank ever said was that he considered coffee and cigarettes 'food groups'...and where is he now again? 

ExittheLemming wrote: In front of congress and responding to attempts by the PMRC to instigate a ratings system for all rock albums with regards the suitability of their lyrics for children:

If lyrics make people do things, how come we don't love each other?