The Reading Room

“So many books, so little time.”

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”

“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”

“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.”

“Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.”

“There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.”

“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?”

“No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to.”

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

“Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.”

“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.”

“One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds.”

“Definition of rock journalism: People who can't write, doing interviews with people who can't think, in order to prepare articles for people who can't read.”

“There's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.”

“Without deviation progress is not possible.”

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

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

“Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read.”

“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. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions.”

“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.”

“You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.”

“The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.”

“I think it is good that books still exist, but they do make me sleepy.”

“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read.”

“Take the Kama Sutra. How many people died from the Kama Sutra as opposed to the Bible? Who wins?”

“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.”

“All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.”

“Music is always a commentary on society.”

“I searched for years I found no love. I'm sure that love will never be a product of plasticity.”

“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.”

“There is more stupidity around than hydrogen and it has longer shelf life.”

“There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another.”