Dick Dale Quotes

I always tend to think of all of my shows as possibly my last show. I'm like a junior Springsteen, without the underbite.

Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit.

On stage is the only place where I really know what I'm doing.

I like entertaining people. I like being on stage. I like being in the life. This is what I do. This is the only thing I know how to do besides rob people and fight. Even when I was robbing people, I was entertaining them. But that's just what I love doing.

I'm always nervous about it. You know, somehow, without even knowing it, I try and recreate the idea of what it feels like to go in front of an audience every night when I'm making a film. And that similar type of pressure and excitement before a scene, or preparing for a movie, so...

I'd like to be a song and dance man.

I feel like you've gotta be able to get up every night in front of a live audience. Whether it's 10 people or 50 people or a hundred people, whether you're in a rock band or doing the comedy circuit.

You don't step on stage to eat; you go there to be eaten.

If I have played my part well, clap your hands, and dismiss me with applause from the stage.

My acting is atrocious, to say the least. But I've found that it's not acting that people are concerned about, it's your presence.

I played a role. That is what actors do. But I played it too well. I went too far. And by the time I wanted to stop, to take a bow and leave the stage, it was too late.

Whenever I'm onstage, I try my best not to think that I'm performing. It's simply another part of my day.

I wouldn't want to try to make a living as an actor. I think actors... I give them a lot of credit for what they go through, but putting myself on the line like that would make me crazy.

I opened the show with this line: "I have decided to give the greatest performance of my life! Oh, wait, sorry, that's tomorrow night.

I've always felt kind of safe on stage, protected. I've talked to other performers about this and they feel the same things, particularly in the live arena. I never get nervous going on stage to do a play. Doing film or television I'll have more butterflies.

The process with the play, obviously, it belongs to you by the time you're stepping on stage in front of that audience for the first time. You can change it by just a look or things you're not even conscious of, but it's such a full immersion.

Many an actor does the stage more ham than good.

I haven't found a comfortable place onstage. I'm sure it doesn't have to be comfortable, but I'm very nervous, so I don't enjoy myself.

We wanted to impress the crowd so much. The city has done so much for us and welcomed us right in, and we just wanted to give them a good show and show them that we're going to play for them. I think guys just had a little bit of jitters.

I think it's a shame when pop culture forgets that theatricality is a big part of it. When Neil Young is fumbling around in his pocket looking for the right harmonica, it doesn't matter that he's a dude in the hat who is a man of the people - there's a theatricality there. You don't have to be David Bowie or the Kabuki theater to have that theatricality going on.

I was new to acting on a stage in a narrative as opposed to acting on a stage as a stand-up. And like everything else it's just like comfort level. The first time I did stand-up I was at a place called the B3 in New York on Third and Avenue B and I not only didn't take the mic out of the stand, but I clutched the stand of the entire time.

When I was in acting class, we did a lot of really serious scenes, and we didn't do comedic scenes. I felt like doing those scenes, it didn't come out of my mouth the right way. I don't know if it's because my voice is different, or what it is about me, but it just seemed a little off.

I'm so scared of doing theater. I've got stage fright, although they keep asking me to come back.

There's nothing more vulnerable than just standing in front of a thousand people, or ten thousand people, and doing your best to entertain them, touch them in some way.

My nature is to get instant gratification. On stage, I can feel everybody's anticipation. I know what they want, I know what I'm going to give them, I know when I'm going to give it to them, I know when they want it.