quotations about surfing
Surfing is a secret garden, not easily entered. My memory of learning a spot, of coming to know and understand a wave, is usually inseparable from the friend with whom I tried to climb its walls.
WILLIAM FINNEGAN
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
Surfing culture has been a big part of our creative process. It makes us tick as musicians and friends. All of our songwriting is in some way inspired by our experiences in the ocean. And one thing that we're proud of is sharing the actual culture behind it, which we've done on this tour. Surfing is so dear to us. It's not just a sport or something fun we do--it's how we operate.
REGGIE FROOM
"Get in Where You FIT IN", Folio Weekly, June 28, 2017
This is the kind of challenge that the wild, unfurling ocean presents to surfers: the music it makes is often impossible to follow, but surfing is about improvising in brilliant ways that utilize the sea's surprises.
SAM BLEAKLEY
Surfing Brilliant Corners
Surfing is for kicks, not crowds. It is for the individual neat it can bring. It is an all-grabbing, watery psychiatry in this over-organized world. To find the champion, you should hook them up with electrodes at all their vital points, take a reading, and find out who is having the most fun.
BOB OTTUM
foreword, You Should Have Been Here an Hour Ago: The Stoked Side of Surfing; Or, How to Hang Ten Through Life and Stay Happy
Out of water, I am nothing.
DUKE KAHANAMOKU
attributed, Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do
All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine.
CAMERON CROWE
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
You wouldn't think it from the way that surfing is represented in contemporary culture -- as a get-away-from-it-all form of relaxation, or a beach culture turning its back on the work ethic -- but surfing is fundamentally melancholic. It is a 'kind of blue', a strange fascination that becomes an obsession. Not getting in the water makes you blue, but paradoxically, the whole tone of surfing sessions can be like a call and response with the sea that draws sailors' ghosts for company. When you are in your teens, surfing is all funk and strut, but as you get older and test yourself a little, those sea ghosts will try to run you down.
SAM BLEAKLEY
Surfing Brilliant Corners
Surfing is like an art. It allows me to express my personality. I become someone else.
ALI KASSEM
"Surfing on a wave of hope for Syria", Sunday Times, June 13, 2017
Surfing is beautiful because it's created a community of like-minded and soul-driven individuals around the world. We all yearn for that glimpse of the vortex inside a barrel and we all love seeing the sunset from the comfort of the lineup. We care about good causes in support of good people, and I believe these things that unite us go beyond waves and surf stoke.
DAVID FLORES
"This Surfer Is Stranded in Bali After Discovering He Has Leukemia", The Inertia, June 27, 2017
As a tribe we have now probed the furthest corners of the oceans. Surfboards have become small, light, spontaneous, free-flying little spears. We have conquered ten-story waves and lived to tell about it. Our lifestyle is now a universal option in the kitbag of humanity. We are featured in movies. Our dance has been diagramed, choreographed and fed back to us. Surfing soap operas are on television and we cut-back huge on freeway billboards. Ironically, the riding of waves has become absorbed by the mainstream we once shunned.
STEVE PEZMAN
foreword, Surfing USA!
Surfing is a good ride, brief seconds yet a culmination of endless hours on a board. These fleeting moments of exhilaration and release are days, months, years of time and experience.
FRED WARDY
"Surfing Is", The Perfect Day: 40 Years of Surfer Magazine
If you're having a bad day, catch a wave.
FROSTY HESSON
Making Mavericks
Above all, surfing is about respecting the power of the ocean. Enduring a two-wave hold down reinforces the point.
DYLAN HEYDEN
"We Asked a Montana Surfboard Shaper about the Finer Points of River Surfing", The Inertia, June 26, 2017
It's impossible to be in Bali and not surf.
CABRERA BELLO
"Cabrera Bello finds joy in the surf", PGA Tour, June 28, 2017
From barrel riding to big wave surfing, I've just fallen in love with the art of riding waves.
BETHANY HAMILTON
Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family and Fighting to Get Back on the Board
I've definitely done it so much where surfing is comparable to a drug. It's like you always need more, get a little jaded and forget that it's so amazing that we get to do this.
MATT ALLEN
"Blind surfers ride the waves in Carlsbad", Del Mar Times, June 6, 2017
One of the greatest things about the sport of surfing is that you need only three things: your body, a surf-board, and a wave.
NAIMA GREEN
Surfing: Rules, Tips, Strategy, and Safety
Surfing is the antithesis of organized social behavior.
STEVE PEZMAN
foreword, Surfing USA!
I think surfing is a platform. It's like any other art form. You have a canvas and you have the ability to create whatever you're really thinking about in the moment.
PARKER COHN
"Look out, here comes Parker Cohn", Los Angeles Times, June 24, 2017
I make my living as a surfer, but I would never call it a job. I'm not even sure you can think of it purely as a sport. Surfing is a bigger concept. It's the essential element of my life, and if I had to compare it to anything, I'd say that surfing is like playing music. There can be endless variations on a song; infinite ways to make a melody. And likewise, everyone who rides a wave brings something unique to the process. No two people surf the same way, and no two waves are alike. It's a constant interpretation of whatever the ocean brings combined with whatever you bring.
LAIRD HAMILTON
Force of Nature: Mind, Body, Soul (And, of Course, Surfing)