1.
I'd never just want to do what everybody else did. I'd be contributing to the sameness of everything.
Don Van Vliet
2.
Bob Dylan impresses me about as much as... well, I was gonna say a slug but I like slugs.
Don Van Vliet
3.
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.
Don Van Vliet
4.
When I see a dolphin, I know it's just as smart as I am.
Don Van Vliet
5.
You can tell by the kindness of a dog how a human should be.
Don Van Vliet
6.
There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers.
Don Van Vliet
7.
A carrot is as close as a rabbit gets to a diamond.
Don Van Vliet
8.
It's not worth getting into the bullshit to see what the bull ate.
Don Van Vliet
9.
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.
Don Van Vliet
10.
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.
Don Van Vliet
11.
I like the blues..... but I like aqua marine just as much.
Don Van Vliet
12.
Art is rearranging and grouping mistakes.
Don Van Vliet
13.
I don't like getting out when I could be painting. And when I'm painting, I don't want anybody else around.
Don Van Vliet
14.
The largest living land mammal is the absent mind.
Don Van Vliet
15.
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.
Don Van Vliet
16.
If you want to be a different fish, jump out of school.
Don Van Vliet
17.
The wind is a very difficult sound to get. It's always changing.
Don Van Vliet
18.
I would never kill a living thing, although I probably have inadvertently while driving automobiles.
Don Van Vliet
19.
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.
Don Van Vliet
20.
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.
Don Van Vliet
21.
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.
Don Van Vliet
22.
The stars are matter, We're matter, But it doesn't matter.
Don Van Vliet
23.
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.
Don Van Vliet
24.
It makes me itch to think of myself as Captain Beefheart. I don't even have a boat.
Don Van Vliet
25.
Be kind, man - don't be mankind.
Don Van Vliet
26.
I think that men has the most highly developed intelligence. I think men get so intelligent that they're stupid.
Don Van Vliet
27.
I needed to purge myself of all the attention my parents had given me - I wasn't neglected enough as a child.
Don Van Vliet
28.
We see the moon, don't we? So it's our eye. Animals see us, don't they? So we're their animals.
Don Van Vliet
29.
If you got ears, you gotta listen.
Don Van Vliet
30.
Beatle bones and smokin' stones the dry sands fall.
Don Van Vliet
31.
An audience can really lift you right up off the stage.
Don Van Vliet
32.
I think most people try to get others to see through their eyes.
Don Van Vliet
33.
Earth ... God's golf ball.
Don Van Vliet
34.
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.
Don Van Vliet
35.
I live in a Mobile Home - I've never had a house, except once; I rented a log cabin.
Don Van Vliet
36.
I think Shakespeare is really the one. Words as music and music as words. Everything he wrote was good, which is really frightening.
Don Van Vliet
37.
But I have been in some very beautiful churches, then I've looked outside and seen people starving to death.
Don Van Vliet
38.
With my voice and my band, I can do anything.
Don Van Vliet
39.
That Sid Vicious was obviously a schizophrenic, kind of a mean one too.
Don Van Vliet
40.
We're all colored, or you wouldn't be able to see anyone.
Don Van Vliet
41.
I don't think artists are made, I think they're born.
Don Van Vliet
42.
The earth is Godʹs golf ball.
Don Van Vliet
43.
I would say that it's an awfully overrated aspirin and very similar to the old people's Disneyland.
Don Van Vliet
44.
I'm interested in playing, not working.
Don Van Vliet
45.
Most of modern rock and roll is a product of guilt.
Don Van Vliet
46.
If you want to be a different fish, you've got to jump out of the school.
Don Van Vliet
47.
I don't do lullabyes.
Don Van Vliet
48.
I have no neighbours other than animals and Joshua Trees.
Don Van Vliet