Frank Zappa citations

Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read.
en

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.
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Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny
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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.
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A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound. The problem comes in when people who take drugs treat them like a license to behave like an asshole.
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Let's not be too rough on our own ignorance, it's what makes America great!
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'Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen's Church)
Roxy & Elsewhere (1974)
Variante: Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny

Zen Masters : The Wisdom of Frank Zappa (2003)

"Packard Goose"
"Joe's Garage Acts II & III" (1979)
Variante: 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.

The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989)
Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book

Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book

Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989), p. 259.
Contexte: My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can. Children are naive — they trust everyone. School is bad enough, but, if you put a child anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you're asking for trouble.

Variante: If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.
Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989), p. 233.

Source: Real Frank Zappa Book

"Ben Watson interviews Frank Zappa", in MOJO magazine (October 1993).
Variante: Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read
Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book

Oui interview (1979)
Contexte: Certification from one source or another seems to be the most important thing to people all over the world. A piece of paper from a school that says you’re smart, a pat on the head from your parents that says you’re good or some reinforcement from your peers that makes you think what you’re doing is worthwhile. People are just waiting around to get certified.

Oui interview (1979)
Contexte: There isn’t anything weird about my music. Weird is a skeleton in the closet, wearing a rubber mask with warts all over its nose, and all that kind of shit. That’s not what I do. The thing that makes my music unusual is that people only hear one kind of music all the time over the radio. It’s wallpaper to their lives. Audile wallpaper. There’s one acceptable beat and there are three acceptable chord progressions. There are five acceptable words: baby, love, tears, yat yat. Just because I don’t deal in those terms doesn’t mean I’m weird. So tell these people: I ain’t weird; I’m rational. I’m a person who can choose to write stuff like that, or choose to write stuff that includes all the notes on the piano played at once, followed by a cement truck driving over the piano, followed by a small atomic explosion. Nothing weird about that as long as you do it in a meaningful way.

"My Pet Theory" on the second disc of the twin CD version
The MOFO Project/Object (2006)
Contexte: The '60s was really stupid … It was a type of merchandising, Americans had this hideous weakness, they had this desire to be OK, fun guys and gals, and they haven't come to terms with the reality of the situation: we were not created equal. Some people can do carpentry, some people can do mathematics, some people are brain surgeons and some people are winos and that's the way it is, and we're not all the same. This concept of one world-ism, everything blended and smoothed out to this mediocre norm that everybody downgrades themselves to be is stupid. The '60s was merchandised to the public at large... My pet theory about the '60s is that there is a sinister plot behind it... The lessons learnt in the '60s about merchandising stupidity to the American public on a large scale have been used over and over again since that time.

Oui interview (1979)
Contexte: Certification from one source or another seems to be the most important thing to people all over the world. A piece of paper from a school that says you’re smart, a pat on the head from your parents that says you’re good or some reinforcement from your peers that makes you think what you’re doing is worthwhile. People are just waiting around to get certified.

"Heavenly Bank Account".
You Are What You Is (1981)

A appearance on The Tonight Show (29 June 1988)
Variante: Let's not be too rough on our own ignorance, it's what makes America great!

Franz Kafka, Betrachtungen [Reflections], Number 52, (c. 1917)
Misattributed

Cocaine Decisions (1983) http://youtube.com/watch?v=RDEwJ2xlSXk
Contexte: I'll tell you what classical music is, for those of you who don't know. Classical music is this music that was written by a bunch of dead people a long time ago. And it's formula music, the same as top forty music is formula music. In order to have a piece be classical, it has to conform to academic standards that were the current norms of that day and age … 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.