Don Van Vliet famous quotes

When I see a dolphin, I know it's just as smart as I am.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Smart #Dolphins

You can tell by the kindness of a dog how a human should be.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Dog #Kindness #Should

The wind is a very difficult sound to get. It's always changing.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Wind #Sound #Difficult

I don't think artists are made, I think they're born.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Artist #Thinking #Born

Art is rearranging and grouping mistakes.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Art #Mistake #Rearranging

I like the blues..... but I like aqua marine just as much.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Marine #Aqua

Be kind, man - don't be mankind.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Men #Be Kind #Kind

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

#Thinking #Frightening

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

#Giving #Want #Pay

There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers.
-- Don Van Vliet

#People #World #Hamburgers

The stars are matter, We're matter, But it doesn't matter.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Stars #Matter

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

#Thinking #Captains #Boat

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

#Thinking #Giving #People

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

#People #Drug #Aspirin

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

#Children #Parent #Attention

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

#Want #Sameness

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

#Slugs #Bob #Dylan

If you want to be a different fish, jump out of school.
-- Don Van Vliet

#School #Different #Want

I have no neighbours other than animals and Joshua Trees.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Animal #Tree #Neighbour

The earth is Godʹs golf ball.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Golf #Balls #Earth

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

#Nice #Smart #Thinking

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

#Important #Mathematics #Clock

Beatle bones and smokin' stones the dry sands fall.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Fall #Dry #Stones

I don't do lullabyes.
-- Don Van Vliet

I think most people try to get others to see through their eyes.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Eye #Thinking #People

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

#Want #Painting

That Sid Vicious was obviously a schizophrenic, kind of a mean one too.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Mean #Sids #Kind

With my voice and my band, I can do anything.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Voice #Band

The largest living land mammal is the absent mind.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Inspirational #Land #Mind

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

#Eye #Animal #Moon

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

#School #Want #Different

Most of modern rock and roll is a product of guilt.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Rocks #Rock And Roll #Guilt

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

#Thinking #Play #Horny

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

#Ghana #Car #Driving

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

#Beautiful #People #Church

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

#Sound #Making Money #Made

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

#Animal #Night #Fool

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

#Judging #House #Toilets

An audience can really lift you right up off the stage.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Stage #Audience

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

#Home #House #Log Cabins

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

#Animal #Men #Done

I'm interested in playing, not working.
-- Don Van Vliet

If you got ears, you gotta listen.
-- Don Van Vliet

#Ears

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

#Able