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.

The line is a characteristically abrasive statement of personal responsibility and intellectual independence. It rejects deference to authority figures—family, educators, clergy, and mass media—as a substitute for self-directed judgment. The sting of “then you deserve it” frames conformity not merely as unfortunate but as a chosen abdication of agency: if you outsource your values and decisions, you also accept the consequences. In Zappa’s broader public persona, such sentiments align with his skepticism toward institutional moralizing and his insistence that individuals think critically rather than follow prescribed scripts for a “proper” life.