Frank Zappa Quotes Page 3

“It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralize the long-range effects of our national stupidity.”

“It's amazing that schools still offer courses in musical composition. What a useless thing to spend money on – to take a course in college to learn how to be a modern composer! No matter how good the course is, when you get out, what the f*ck will you do for a living? The easiest thing to do is become a composition teacher yourself, spreading 'the disease' to the next generation.”

“Jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny.”

“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.”

“Just because somebody hears something you say, or reads something that you write, doesn’t mean you’ve reached them. With reading comprehension being what it is in the U. S., you can safely toss that one out the window. If you want to judge by the listening habits of people who buy records, the first thing they do is put it on and talk over it.”

“Let's not be too rough on our own ignorance; it's what makes America great!”

“lf you’re going to deal with reality, you’re going to have to make one big discovery: Reality is something that belongs to you as an individual. If you wanna grow up, which most people don’t, the thing to do is take responsibility for your own reality and deal with it on your own terms. Don’t expect that because you pay some money to somebody else or take a pledge or join a club or run down the street or wear a special bunch of clothes or play a certain sport or even drink Perrier water, it’s going to take care of everything for you. Because it all comes from inside. As a matter of fact, that’s where it stays.”

“May your shit come to life and kiss you on the face.”

“Modern Americans behave as if intelligence were some sort of hideous deformity.”

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

“Most people don’t think I’m rational. They’re too busy featuring their hurt. They find it irrational not to feature your hurt. That’s how f*cked up they are.”

“Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.”

“Music is always a commentary on society.”

“Music is the best.”

“Music is the only religion that delivers the goods.”

“Music without the ebb and flow would be like watching a film with only good guys in it.”

“Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.”

“No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to.”

“Nobody looks good with brown lipstick on”

“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.”

“One of the things that determines the curriculum in music schools is: which of the current fashions in modern music gets the most grant money from the mysterious benefactors in Foundation-Land.”

“One of the things that was taken out of the curriculum was civics. Civics was a class that used to be required before you could graduate from high school. You were taught what was in the U.S. Constitution. And after all the student rebellions in the '60s, civics was banished from the student curriculum and was replaced by something called social studies. Here we live in a country that has a fabulous constitution and all these guarantees, a contract between the citizens and the government - nobody knows what's in it. It's one of the best kept secrets. And so, if you don't know what your rights are, how can you stand up for them? And furthermore, if you don't know what is in that document, how can you care if someone is shredding it?”

“One size does not fit all.”

“Organized religions by their very natures are misleading. The bottom line is always money. What that’s got to do with your spiritual well-being still eludes me. It’s always the bucks, no matter how they disguise it. If you need that sort of assistance to keep yourself together, you may be paying a higher rate to a fake religion than you would to a psychotherapist. Which is not to say that a psychotherapist is going to give you any better value per dollar either.”

“People have preposterous ideas about what those songs are about and what the music means. They start spouting all this shit that’s so far off the mark, it’s revolting. But if that’s how they derive pleasure, who am I to deprive them of it? Let ’em enjoy it. It’s there for their edification. But total comprehension is out of the question.”

“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.”

“Republicans stand for raw, unbridled evil and greed and ignorance smothered in balloons and ribbons.”

“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.”

“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?”

“So many books, so little time.”