Dick Dale Quotes

You can't eat fish. It's 6,000 parts DDT per million all over the world, not counting radiation.

I grew a love for helpless, defenseless things. People would give me lions and jaguars. I had cheetahs, monkeys.

I always wanted a guitar. I always wanted to be a cowboy singer because I also listened to Hank Williams, and he would always sing these neat romantic songs.

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.

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

I used to be a mean maniac. Someone once threw a firecracker at a show and I jumped off the side of the stage and whacked 'em on the side of the head.

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.

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

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.

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

Every song is like a painting.

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

I met Leo Fender, who is the guru of all amplifiers, and he gave me a Stratocaster. He became a second father to me.

I'll just tell you the way it is. You ask me what time it is and I'm gonna tell you how to build a clock.

I don't claim to be a musician, I didn't go to Julliard.

My aunt played the piano and I used to sit and listen to it.

I've got holes in my guitar.

I almost had to have my leg amputated because of an infection.

Music is an attitude. It's a sensation to the average person, to the human being. And keep it simple, stupid. That's always been my theory.

I always felt people should live with animals.

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

I'm constantly being influenced by the soul that's directly in front of me.

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 wanted to put a sheet in explaining what all the songs are about, but they didn't do it.

People just loved the sound because I kept it simple.

I became stereotyped.

I'll never die. I'll just explode, right there before your eyes, onstage.

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

I make jokes because humor is the greatest healing factor that there is.