Frank Zappa: Trending quotes

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Frank Zappa: 258 quotes212 likes

“Hey, you know something people?
I'm not black,
But there's a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I'm not white.”

"Trouble Every Day".
Freak Out! (1966)
Variant: Hey, you know something people? I'm not black, but there's a whole lots a times I wish I could say I'm not white.

“Look here brother, who you jivin' with that cosmik debris?”

Frank Zappa

"Cosmik Debris"
Apostrophe (') (1974)

“And it's the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin' "You can't understand me!"
'N all that other jazz they hand me
In the papers and TV and
All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day
Each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
Because the color of your skin
Just don't appeal to him
(No matter if it's black or white)
Because he's out for blood tonight.”

Frank Zappa

"Trouble Every Day"
Freak Out! (1966)

“The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they're property.”

Frank Zappa

Appearance on The Howard Stern Show (1987).

“I've smoked ten marijuana cigarettes in my life, and probably the last time I had one near my face was twelve, fifteen years ago. And the reason I did was because, since I do smoke, people would say, "Here, smoke this, you'll get high." So I smoked it, and it gave me a sore throat and made me sleepy. And I must either presume that that's what high means, or something was wrong. But I've never had a positive result from smoking marijuana. It just wasn't my cup of tea. And I never used LSD, never used cocaine, never used heroin or any of that other stuff.”

Frank Zappa

Rolling Stone interview (1988)

“The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has the medieval aroma, like the days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball…I find this unfathomable, but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing the bassoon.”

Frank Zappa

Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989), p. 144.

“Shes a valley girl
In a clothing store
Okay, fine…
Fer sure, fer sure.”

Frank Zappa

"Valley Girl" (co-written with Moon Zappa).
Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch (1982)

“Why should I smile when I'm sitting here with you?”

Frank Zappa

To John Lofton
Crossfire debate on censorship (1986)

“I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious
With the stuff that I say
I'm the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I'm the slime oozin' out
From your TV set.”

Frank Zappa

"I'm the Slime"
Over-Nite Sensation (1973)

“The biggest threat to America today is not communism. It's moving America toward a fascist theocracy, and everything that's happened during the Reagan administration is steering us right down that pipe … I really think that. … 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

Crossfire debate on censorship (1986)

“We're not talking light-hearted foolishness here — when we go for stupid we go for BIG STUPID — like people who shoot at you on the freeway, or the Rambos and Rambo-ettes who blow people away in shopping malls and fast-food restaurants with automatic weapons.”

Frank Zappa

Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989), p. 239.

“I have four children, and I want them to grow up in a country that has a working First Amendment.”

Frank Zappa

Appearance on CBS Morning News (18 September 1985) - YouTube video http://youtube.com/watch?v=LD1DI2SntFI

“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

The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989)

“So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day”

Frank Zappa

"Trouble Every Day".
Freak Out! (1966)

“Every socialistic type of government… produces bad art, produces social inertia, produces really unhappy people, and it's more repressive than any other kind of government.”

Frank Zappa

Interview, "My Afternoon with Frank Zappa", Larry Rogak, (New York writer and attorney) Zappa.com (May 8, 1980) http://www.zappa.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11831

“On Ventura, there she goes
She just bought some bitch'n clothes
Tosses her head n flips her hair
She got a whole bunch of nothin in there”

Frank Zappa

"Valley Girl"
Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch (1982)

“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

Interview on Channel 4 (1 June 1983) - YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFjZOeL10MA&NR

“Classical musicians go to the conservatories, rock´n roll musicians go to the garages.”

Frank Zappa

Interview at Swedish Radio, programme Nightflite (circus 1980) http://home.swipnet.se/bengt-jonsson/zappaint.htm#Bobby

“To me, absurdity is the only reality.”

Frank Zappa

As quoted a review of This door is too small (for a bear) (2010) http://www.needcompany.org/cgi-bin/www_edit/projects/nc/scripts/nc.cgi?session=38&a=v&t=EN&id=11029

“When God created Republicans, he gave up on everything else.”

Frank Zappa

Appearance on Thicke of the Night (28 April 1984).