Top 50 Garrett McNamara Quotes

I wanted to be the first to ride a 100-foot wave.

If you have fear then it means you are not living in the moment.

When I was sixteen I was terrified and I vowed never to surf waves over ten feet tall.

I caught every wave I wanted and I fell in love with big waves at 16 years old. Then it just was bigger and bigger from there.

I’d always surfed with my ego – I had to get the biggest, best wave – and a lot of it was for survival.

Nazare loves me! I said God loves surfers, but Mama Nazare definitely loves me.

In the beginning of my career, I loved the fear because if I was afraid, then I was going to get the rush. Your endorphins get released when you’re afraid. So whenever I would surf, I would be looking for the rush.

And, you know, I think all of us surfers, our happy place, the place we like more than anywhere on the wave is in the barrel.

Usually, I lead with my heart and feel my way through.

I’ve got a stretching program that’s specific to my body, to keep my lower back mobile and my shoulders strong.

Danger is real. But fear is something we create.

It’s just the most amazing feeling to be out there in the water riding waves. It’s like walking on the water.

It never happens in Europe, and I’m not sure how often it happens here in Australia, but in Hawaii and all over the United States nobody knows what a fast lane is.

I don’t wanna say I’m growing up, but I definitely feel content.

When I’m riding a wave and making it, it’s just like, ‘Alright, yeah, another wave.’ But when you’re getting pounded and thrown in every direction, when you have no control, you really feel alive.

It’s a matter of facing your fears. Going where you’re not comfortable, after you do it so many times, and you have so many heavy, heavy experiences, then all of the sudden it becomes normal.

I broke ribs three different times.

I used to not care if I died, but once I married and had children and became part of a big surfing community, that changed.

I can be sittin’ at home in Hawaii and see the biggest swell of the year coming here and be so happy and just say, ‘No, I’m happy right here.’

If you look at the statistics, it’s a lot more dangerous to ride down a highway than a big wave.

Fear is when we’re thinking about the past or thinking about the future, two things that do not exist. If we stay in the moment, do our best in the moment, enjoy the moment, there is no fear.

So, when you come down a big wave and everything’s perfect, you make it to the shoulder and you kick out. But, when you come down and it closes out or you fall on the way down, then this massive, basically like an avalanche. just lands on you and it feels like a ton of bricks.

It’s so amazing to just be in the water, surfing with your friends.

You always hear, ‘You can do whatever you want. You can make your dreams come true.’ It’s kind of a cliche, and I always thought of it as a cliche.

You know every wave is so different. It just depends on the ride, like when you come down and you don’t make the wave and you get blown up and you just feel like so small, but also so alive, because you’re at the mercy of this monster and its gotten hold of you and shaking you and rattling you.

All these waves are just so fun to ride and are normal to me.

I love working out to Eminem.

I lived for big waves. It’s where I felt comfortable and I could surf with ease. With smaller waves, it didn’t feel as natural.

Nazare is a special place for me; we got married right there, at the lighthouse. The seafood and wine are amazing. Best of all, there are no sharks: they are much more scary than a big wave.

You can go very quickly from heaven and find yourself in hell.

Riding big waves was my passion.

I love being underwater.

There’s giant waves in numerous occasions around the world, it’s a matter of the wind being offshore.

I got desensitized by riding so many big waves that I don’t really get a rush anymore.

I went to Alaska a while back and surfed the waves generated from a glacier calving and ever since then, I’ve never been afraid in the ocean.

The scariest part is when you are coming down the wave and there is all this water coming down the wave and your feet are coming out of the straps.

I got married at the lighthouse , the 16th-century Forte de Sao Miguel Arcanjo, on the edge of the promontory of Sitio.

When I was five-years-old I was jumping off two-story buildings.

In Nazare, the ocean is known as a place of death, not of riding waves.

I’d become the little surfer in my childhood drawings.

Now I know that if I surf without expectations and have a map for making my passion my life’s plan, I’m always in the present and smiling.

I don’t measure waves; I’m just blessed to be surfing.

I lose my mind if I miss a swell that I want to be on and I have the ability to be on it.

I’ve got a really amazing ability to forget and disregard information that comes in my brain.

The first time I tried surfing, we went out in front of Cement City and I just remember falling in love. It just instantly became all I wanted to do.

It didn’t matter if we didn’t have new bikes and skateboards and a nice car, and a lot of food in the fridge. We were in the ocean just enjoying life to the fullest.

Nothing I’ve achieved in my life has ever come about because of alcohol.

I wake up early, between 3 and 5 in the morning.

To acknowledge that the biggest wave in the world might be a shore break off a little Portuguese town no one has ever heard of flies in the face of what passes for reason in the surf world.

In yoga, you need to focus on staying in the moment in a sometimes uncomfortably hot room. That focus and alertness help when I’m riding waves.