Frank Zappa Quotes - Page 2

The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own.

Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.

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.

Schools train people to be ignorant, with style. They give you the equipment that you need to be a functional ignoramus. American schools* do not equip you to deal with things like logic; they don't give you the criteria by which to judge between good and bad in any medium or format; and they prepare you to be a usable victim for military-industrial complex that needs manpower.

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

I would say that today, dishonesty is the rule, and honesty the exception. It could be, statistically, that more people are honest than dishonest, but the few that really control things are not honest, and that tips the balance.

I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white.

Anybody who wants religion is welcome to it, as far as I'm concerned--I support your right to enjoy it. However, I would appreciate it if you exhibited more respect for the rights of those people who do not wish to share your dogma, rapture, or necrodestination.

As long as you're just smart enough to do a job and just dumb enough to swallow what they feed you, you're gonna be alright. But if you go beyond that then you're gonna have these grave doubts that give you stomach problems, headachesmake you want to go out and do something else. So, I believe that schools mechanically and very specifically try and breed out any hint of creative thought in the kids that are coming out.

Censoring what you say is one of the ways in which people who are not nice can take away your personal freedom.

You can bet everything will come to an end. It's going to be ugly and it's going to be a mess, and it's going to be something that somebody did in the name of God.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

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

Environmental laws were not passed to protect our air and water, they were passed to get votes.

The last election just laid the foundation of the next 500 years of Dark Ages.

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.

Republican is fine, if your a millionaire. Democrats is fair, if all you own is what you wear. Neither of them's really right, cause neither of them care.

You know, people are basically shitty. It's when they prove it over and over again that it gets obnoxious.

It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia. Eventually within the next quarter of a century, the nostalgia cycles will be so close together that people will not be able to take a step without being nostalgic for the one they just took. At that point, everything stops. Death by Nostalgia.

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.

I don't want to see any religious people in public office because they're working for another boss.

A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.

A wise man once said, never discuss philosophy or politics in a disco environment.

Interviewer: 'So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?' Frank Zappa: 'You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?

The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. You eat this apple, you're going to be as smart as God. We can't have that.