Top 280 Frank Zappa Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The most important thing in art is The Frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively – because without this humble appliance, you can’t know where The Art stops and The Real World begins.”

— Frank Zappa

52. “Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?”

— Frank Zappa

53. “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.”

— Frank Zappa

54. “The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe!”

— Frank Zappa

55. “I think that if a person doesn’t feel cynical then they’re out of phase with the 20th century. Being cynical is the only way to deal with modern civilization – you can’t just swallow it whole.”

— Frank Zappa

56. “The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on.”

— Frank Zappa

57. “This is a stupid song and that’s the way I like it.”

— Frank Zappa

58. “There will never be a nuclear war; there’s too much real estate involved.”

— Frank Zappa

59. “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

60. “I write what I like to write. Those who like to listen to it, listen to it. And the ones who don’t, watch football and drink beer, jog, go to discos and so forth. I never claimed to be a man for all seasons.”

— Frank Zappa

61. “Call any vegetable and the chances are good that the vegetable will respond to you.”

— Frank Zappa

62. “Information doesn’t kill you.”

— Frank Zappa

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

— Frank Zappa

64. “Anything played wrong twice in a row is the beginning of an arrangement.”

— Frank Zappa

65. “Whatever you have to do to have a good time, let’s get on with it, so long as it doesn’t cause a murder.”

— Frank Zappa

66. “Rock music was never written for or performed for conservative tastes.”

— Frank Zappa

67. “Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.”

— Frank Zappa

68. “My balls feel like a pair of maracas.”

— Frank Zappa

69. “The computer can’t tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what’s missing is the eyebrows.”

— Frank Zappa

70. “If classical music is the state of the art, then the arts are in a sad state.”

— Frank Zappa

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

— Frank Zappa

72. “I am the slime oozing out from your TV set. You will obey me while I lead you, and eat the garbage while I feed you.”

— Frank Zappa

73. “I think that if you use the so-called “strong words” you’ll get your point across faster and you can save a lot of beating around the bush. Why are people afraid of words? Sometimes the dumbest thing that gets said makes the point for you.”

— Frank Zappa

74. “The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents – because they have a tame child-creature in their house.”

— Frank Zappa

75. “Maybe you should stay with your mama, you’re kind of stupid and ugly, too.”

— Frank Zappa

76. “If your children ever find out how lame you really are, they’ll murder you in your sleep.”

— Frank Zappa

77. “In order to deviate successfully, one has to have at least a passing acquaintance with whatever norm one expects to deviate from.”

— Frank Zappa

78. “Just because somebody hears something you say, or reads something that you write, doesn’t mean you’ve reached them.”

— Frank Zappa

79. “Mr. Gorbachev has apparently stumbled onto one of the best-kept secrets in recent Soviet history: Communism doesn’t work.”

— Frank Zappa

80. “Our big prize tonight is fifty American dollars to the girl with the most exciting mammalian protuberances.”

— Frank Zappa

81. “Jazz is the music of unemployment.”

— Frank Zappa

82. “If we can’t be free at least we can be cheap.”

— Frank Zappa

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

— Frank Zappa

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

— Frank Zappa

85. “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.”

— Frank Zappa

86. “Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are in my opinion more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality.”

— Frank Zappa

87. “Sometimes you got to get sick before you can feel better.”

— Frank Zappa

88. “She is an office girl, her name is Betty. Her favorite group is Helen Reddy.”

— Frank Zappa

89. “Nobody looks good with brown lipstick on.”

— Frank Zappa

90. “Beware of the fish people, they are the true enemy.”

— Frank Zappa

91. “I’m the devil’s advocate. We have our own worshipers.”

— Frank Zappa

92. “Fact of the matter is, there is no hip world, there is no straight world. There’s a world, you see which has people in it who believe a variety of different things.”

— Frank Zappa

93. “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.”

— Frank Zappa

94. “The bigger the cushion, the better the pushin’.”

— Frank Zappa

95. “Did you ever consider that LSD was really one of the most dangerous drugs ever manufactured because the people who took it turned into yuppies?”

— Frank Zappa

96. “You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.”

— Frank Zappa

97. “You are what you is, you is what you am, you ain’t what you’re not. So see what you got?”

— Frank Zappa

98. “The plumber he says, never flush a tampon. This is great information, cost me half a weeks pay.”

— Frank Zappa

99. “I ain’t the type for begging, I am not the type to plead. If she don’t change those evil ways, I’m gonna make her bleed.”

— Frank Zappa

100. “Cocaine decisions that you make today, will mean nothing later on when you get nose decay.”

— Frank Zappa