“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.”
The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989)
Context: 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.
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Frank Zappa 129
American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and fil… 1940–1993Related quotes

New York Daily News interview (1979)

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 92

On the placement of microphones in the production of the album Zoom, in "An Electric return for Jeff Lynne" at CNN (3 September 2001) http://archives.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/03/jeff.lynne/

Earliest attribution found in Who Said That?: More than 2,500 Usable Quotes and Illustrations https://books.google.nl/books?id=7mn8AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT63 (1995) by George Sweeting. Online sources always attribute the quote to Augustine, but never specify in which of his works it is to be found.
Disputed

“Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.”
I was taught that I didn't have anything, and it was my job to work hard and get something, and that's just not true.
from talks at Mills College, 1989. Published with libretto of Perfect Lives, pages 151-2, Burning Books Press