When I first played the guitar without plugging it into an amplifier, the people at Fender were blown away. They couldn’t believe the sound. I said, ‘See, gentlemen, the world is no longer flat.’

I make my guitar scream with pain or pleasure or sensuality. It makes people move their feet and shake their bodies. That’s what music does.

What I play now isn’t surf music. It’s too powerful. I used to go through paper bags; now I go through brick walls. I play hard.

I called it Rockabilly ’cause I was rocking the strums, which you’re not supposed to do.

I have all the rhythm in my left hand, and I use the rhythms that Gene Krupa did on his drums.

I’ve never followed a list in my life, and that’s probably what has created so much nervous energy in my body.

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.

I learned everything by ear and played all the different instruments. So then I was able to find a guitar. That was, like, in the seventh grade. And then I didn’t know how to put...

Every time I do an album, I say, ‘That’s the last one.’

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

When I played with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings in Vegas, the guys used to go, ‘Dick, cut it out, man! You’re moving around too much on this stage. You’re making us look bad!’

I may play the same songs night to night, but I never play them the same way.

Whatever you do, don’t take shortcuts. It’s great advice to take and live by.

There’s a saying. If you want someone to love you forever, buy a dog, feed it and keep it around.

My music is more native than intricate or technical.

If I ever wrote a book, people would never believe it.

When I started surfing, you’d hear this neat rumbling sound when you took off and go for the drop, and when the wave is lipping up over the top of you, it makes this hissing...

Every time I went into the studio some engineer tried to impress me with how they’re going to capture my sound with all kinds of tricks. But they limited the sound and never allowed me...

I always felt people should live with animals.

Nothing could capture the sound of Dick Dale – he was too loud.

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...

I refuse to bring my son up in a world corrupt as it is now.

When I come onstage, I’m exploding.

I’m a perfectionist. I’m not going to cheat the people.

People just loved the sound because I kept it simple.

If you ask me what I’d rather be doing, well, I’d rather be home in California, watching TV, polishing my tools and working around the ranch.

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...

That’s what my music does for me. It makes people happy. When I play, I thank the Lord I’ve never seen someone walk away from a Dick Dale dance not having a good time. That’s...

I became stereotyped.

People ask about love. Real love. I was never in love; the people around me didn’t love me. They were just along for the ride.

Surf music is actually just the sound of the waves played on a guitar: that wet, splashy sound.

I surfed Dana Point, San Clemente, and of course Huntington Beach. Every morning, you could find me at the hot water pipe.

When I play, I don’t cheat. I played for 490,000 in Berlin, and I’ll play just as hard for 100.

Guitar Player Magazine says Dick Dale is the father of Heavy Metal, blowing up 48 amplifiers, creating the first power amplifier.

Some guys record an album with songs that are filler. I recorded this album like it was my last.

In the Shao Lin temple, they never allow you to touch the skin of a drum until you can tongue what you’re going to play.

Gene Krupa was my big hero, and I used to play on my mother’s flour cans and sugar cans with the kitchen knives, listening to the big bands on my dad’s records. Gene Krupa and...

When I was 18 at the Santa Ana River Jetty is where I put my first board in the water that I ever got from Joe Quigg. I was just riding the whitewater in, and...

I blew amps like they were made of tissue paper. Once I blew out the sound system at Royal Albert Hall in London.

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!’

My uncle gave me a trumpet, but I loved the Louis Armstrong sound and the Harry James sound and I played by ear and I played always soulful or very direct from the gut.

I thought of Gene Krupa’s drumming, his staccato drumming. I went and put ‘Misirlou’ to that rhythm.

When my guitar was growling, playing surf beat, you could hear it; you could feel it.

I don’t play pyrotechnic scales. I play about frustration, patience, anger. Music is an extension of my soul.

Surfers were the ones who named all my songs. They’d yell out the names, and we just kept ’em.

Jimi was a good guy ’til he got into drugs. That’s the way it is. I just tell it like it is.

I answer number one to myself, because I know myself. I answer to my fans, because they know me. My mother knows me and God knows me, and that’s where it’s at.

Buddy Rich was one of the most incredible technicians in the world, on this planet, but the only people he could really impress, who knew what he was doing was another musician or another drummer.

I can play every instrument there is, every horn, I’ve played all the saxes and trumpets and everything and keyboards.

Springsteen – he’s the Lord God.