"They couldn't speak English and Mike couldn't speak their language. They paddled by and said something like "Om Gowa Mungie Wung Ow." Mike smiled and said, "yeah man, hang ten." They thought that was great; they went stroking out saying "hang ten, hang ten." The only English word they know is "hang ten.""

"It was so expensive in Senegal they decided to leave. A cup of coffee costed the equivalent of one American dollar in Senegalese Francs."

"It's just like riding waves back in the U.S.A., except you aren't. You're in Africa. They couldn't get over being in Africa. Mike would pull out of a wave, paddle over to Robert and say, "Robert, guess what? We're in Africa!" I don't know what it was, but it was really hard to accept."

"The rates here were unbelievable; thirty dollars a day each. As you walked through the front door they stamped 'sucker' on your forehead."

"[Describing the contents of Mike and Robert's suitcase] Six pairs of trunks, two boxes of wax, some modern sounds and in case of injury, one bandaid."

"When Corky does something strange everybody for 50 yards knows all about it. "Hey did you guys see that El Rollo, boy it was a beauty!" Yeah big deal Corky."

"Janet Julian - Party girl"

"I don't want to be a star. Have my picture in magazines, have a bunch of kids looking up to me. I'm a drunk, Bear, a screw up. I just surf because it's good to go out and ride with your friends. I don't even have that anyone."

"Why don't you get back to Burbank!"

"He ain't no hodad Squidlips!"

"Mexico! Surfboards! Guns!"

"Bear: That's the lemon next to the pie."

"Narrator, Fly: Stay casual, Barlow."

"It's a surfing How Green Was My Valley the loss of an aristocracy, the end of an era, the passing of a more innocent time to a more corrupt and complex one-all growing up is the passing of innocence. It's based on the lives of three friends ten years ago. It's about their friendship, and the value of friendship. I don't think that kids today have the same kind of values that these people had then; I don't see movies being made about that kind of thing. This movie is about friendship: surfing is just the background. It's about love of a place, love of a time, love of your human contacts, and the loss of those things. It's the most personal film I'll probably ever make, and I figured I ought to do it now, before I get too far away from it. At least half the people who participated are dead now. The attrition rate among surfers is very high. A lot of them died in Vietnam and OD'd on dope."

"When I did Big Wednesday my first impressions were that I was going to do this coming-of-age story with Arthurian overtones about surfers that nobody took seriously, their troubled lives made larger than life by their experience with the sea. And that’s what the movie is. It never strayed from that. There was a lot of pressure to make it more like Animal House, but the movie has a huge following now because it did have loftier ambitions. It wasn’t just a story about somebody trying to ride the biggest wave or something. That’s not enough."

"Three friends. Twelve Turbulent Years. And One Day We All Must Face."

"A day will come that is like no other... and nothing that happens after will ever be the same."

"A story of three friends growing up in the sixties; of ten years filled with parties; weddings and uncertainties; and of the day we must all face..."

"Jan-Michael Vincent - Matt Johnson"

"William Katt - Jack Barlowe"

"Gary Busey - Leroy "The Masochist" Smith"

"Patti D'Arbanville - Sally"

"Lee Purcell - Peggy Gordon"

"Sam Melville - Bear"

"Ceila Kay - The Bear's bride"

"Darrell Fetty - Waxer"

"Gerry Lopez - Himself"

"Hank Worden - Shopping Cart"

"Joe Spinell - Psychologist"

"Steve Kanaly - Sally's Husband"

"Barbara Hale - Mrs. Barlow"

"Fran Ryan - Lucy"

"Dennis Aaberg - Slick"

"Reb Brown - Enforcer"

"Arthur Rosenberg - Official"

"Charlene Tilton - Party girl"

"Frank McRae - Sergeant"

"Perry Lang - Tall kid"

"Michael Talbott - Hog"

"Robert Englund - Narrator, Fly"

"Keith Davis - Ostrich"

"Sal Masekela as himself"

"The technical end of it, I wasn’t too worried about, because I know the guys at Imageworks can do almost anything. They’re geniuses over there. We did say to them, ‘If we can’t do the water well, then we can’t do this movie.’ We were going to have so many waves and so much water. It just has to look great. Of course, they came up to the challenge. They did way better than I could have even dreamed."

"The project at Sony, Surf’s Up, was looking for two directors. Chris Jenkins pitched us the idea – Ash and myself, although it was separately."

"Matt Taylor as Ivan the sea urchin"

"Jack P. Ranjo as Smudge"

"Reese Elowe as Kate"

"Reed Buck as Arnold"

"Rob Machado as himself"