Don Van Vliet quotes:

Bob Dylan impresses me about as much as... well, I was gonna say a slug but I like slugs.

That Sid Vicious was obviously a schizophrenic, kind of a mean one too.

Johnny Rotten. He's a big fan of mine. I used to see him out in the audience in England and he'd stand up and holler. He's funny. Smart too, and a nice guy. Don't think he's a jerk because he isn't.

James Brown is important because he decorates the clock correctly and he's good with lower mathematics. Don't get me wrong - he's good.

I live in a Mobile Home - I've never had a house, except once; I rented a log cabin.

It makes me itch to think of myself as Captain Beefheart. I don't even have a boat.

You can almost judge how screwed up somebody is by the kind of toilet paper they use. Go in any rich house and it's some weird coloured embossed stuff.

I'd never just want to do what everybody else did. I'd be contributing to the sameness of everything.

I would never kill a living thing, although I probably have inadvertently while driving automobiles.

I like the blues..... but I like aqua marine just as much.

It's not worth getting into the bullshit to see what the bull ate.

The wind is a very difficult sound to get. It's always changing.

The stars are matter, We're matter, But it doesn't matter.

A carrot is as close as a rabbit gets to a diamond.

When I see a dolphin, I know it's just as smart as I am.

I think people have had too much to think and ought to flex their magic muscles. It takes awhile to get oriented to what I do, but people seem to be able to hear it if they give it a chance. I'd never just want to do what everybody else did. I'd be contributing to the sameness of everything.

Art is rearranging and grouping mistakes.

Well, the gold fish in the bowl lay upside down bloatingFull in the sky and the plains were bleached white with skeletonsVarious species grouped together accordingTo their past beliefsThe only way they ever all got together wasNot in love but shameful grief

Well, the way you'd been, old ladyI could see the fear in your windowsUnder your furry crawling browA silver bow rings up in inchesYou were afraid you'd be the devil's red wifeBut it's alright, God dug your danceAnd would have you young and in his harum

You can tell by the kindness of a dog how a human should be.

If you want to be a different fish, jump out of school.

There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers.

I don't want to sell my music. I'd like to give it away because where I got it, you didn't have to pay for it.

I'd rather play a tune on a horn, but I've always felt that I didn't want to train myself. Because when you get a train, you've got to have an engine and a caboose. I think it's better to train the caboose. You train yourself, you strain yourself.

I don't even know what sound is, much less what it's for. It isn't to make money that's for sure. I've never made any.

I don't like getting out when I could be painting. And when I'm painting, I don't want anybody else around.

I think that men has the most highly developed intelligence. I think men get so intelligent that they're stupid.

We see the moon, don't we? So it's our eye. Animals see us, don't they? So we're their animals.

I needed to purge myself of all the attention my parents had given me - I wasn't neglected enough as a child.

But I have been in some very beautiful churches, then I've looked outside and seen people starving to death.

Be kind, man - don't be mankind.

I think most people try to get others to see through their eyes.

Beatle bones and smokin' stones the dry sands fall.

I don't think artists are made, I think they're born.

The largest living land mammal is the absent mind.

Earth ... God's golf ball.

An audience can really lift you right up off the stage.

If you got ears, you gotta listen.

We're all colored, or you wouldn't be able to see anyone.

Man has done a lot to make himself dangerous and animals get the worst of all of it. But then, man too is an animal.

With my voice and my band, I can do anything.

I don't do lullabyes.

I'm interested in playing, not working.

I have no neighbours other than animals and Joshua Trees.

Most of modern rock and roll is a product of guilt.

I would say that it's an awfully overrated aspirin and very similar to the old people's Disneyland.

I don't look like a desert person because I stay indoors most of the day and fool around at night. That's what the desert animals do - they don't have a tan either.

The earth is Godʹs golf ball.

I think Shakespeare is really the one. Words as music and music as words. Everything he wrote was good, which is really frightening.

If you want to be a different fish, you've got to jump out of the school.