Musicians more than most people are in the moment. That's the dual nature of that job.

Frank [Zappa] was not a big fan of having lyrics, but sometimes he had things to say that lent themselves to lyrics.

Frank [Zappa]'s music was never for the mass audience. His music contains specific kinds of information that you won't find elsewhere in rock and roll.

I never dreamed that my future would be my husband's past. But it's such a huge past in terms of the recorded content.

The problem with composers is that they are the most unrequired job in America.

I think ingenuity is part of our DNA. That plus curiosity, plus the willingness to commit.

It's the ultimate identity theft when you start messing with somebody's work. Thinking that you could edit the work, or mix it differently, or re-EQ it, or make claims about it that aren't true.

Certainly Apple has improved enormously. At the beginning, the sampling rate was an issue for me, but a bigger argument was over digital rights, which I had.

Frank [Zappa] said he probably would have been a major criminal, given his brain power and his attention to detail, had he not been a composer. But being a composer is not something you can't help.

When you have a single composer writing his work, it shouldn't be doled out in singles based on the length of a piece.

If you think about how long it takes to write a piece of music for an orchestra, it's outrageous to me, outrageous.

It is when we are faced with death that we turn most bookish.

I used my mental illness as a springboard to the rest of my life.

This is what progress does, you know. Each step into the future makes us ever so much grander and more demanding and thus ever so slightly less human.

My doctor said I look like a million dollars - green and wrinkled.

Helplessness is unquestionably the first and the surest indication of a praying heart. ... Prayer and helplessness are inseparable. Only he who is helpless can truly pray.

The spirit of logical analysis should in practice blend with the practical pressure for the adoption of some form of international language, but it should not allow itself to be stampeded by it.

Life has no plot. It is by far more interesting than anything you can say about it.

You're not simply entitled to be an actor - you're not an actor just because you call yourself one - you earn it. You earn it by working.

Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.

Whatever may be the experience in everyday life, the basci inner Truth should not be forgotten.