Dick Dale

When I start playing I'm just a rollercoaster of sound. I don't know what's coming next, I never do, and I sit and sign and talk to the people afterwards. ”

My philosophy is the thicker the wood the thicker the sound, the bigger the string the bigger the sound. My smallest string is a 14 gauge. ”

My philosophy is that on a scale of 1 to 10, I will go to 15. No matter what! ”

As I'd go out learning to surf, I'd feel the power of waves coming over my body. It's like you're with God. ”

For 20 years I've been screaming at these guitar companies, saying, 'It's abnormal to put your arm around an acoustic guitar that is about 6 to 8 inches deep.' Your arm reaches over, and you start to strum, and then all of a sudden you get a charley horse in your back. The older you get, the greater the charley horse. ”

People who have witnessed all the years of me playing, they bring their kids and say, 'I used to see this guy when I was fourteen!' ”

Kids don't see me as an oldies person when I go out on stage. They see me as an energy force. ”

I was reading a magazine when I was a little kid, probably about twelve years old, and an ad said that if you sell so many jars of Noxzema skin cream, we'll sell you a ukulele. So I went out and banged on doors in the snow in Quincy, Massachusetts, where I was raised, and I sold the skin cream. ”

The kids called me King of the Surf Guitar. I surfed sunup to sundown. ”

As a little kid I had a girlfriend, and her boyfriend used to beat me up, so then I used to sing these songs, and that's what it's all about. Country music is all about your heart and your people and things like that. ”