Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm really trying hard not to do anything that has been done before. So knowing everything I can about the legacy of magic challenges my team and I to invent new illusions.
The silent thing onstage allows for a kind of intimacy that no conversation can have. If I just shut up, we're forced to look at each other and really confront that moment.
Every acting gig isn't the same, every writing job isn't the same, every live performance isn't the same - the challenge is the level of difficulty or ease, and that may vary.
I'm a religious man. I am Jewish but I believe in all religions. I believe in God and see him as an old man with a big white beard and pray to him every day for a few minutes.
Magic comprises the most profound contemplation of the most secret things, their nature, power, quality, substance, and virtues, as well as the knowledge of their whole nature.
Indeed, most magicians catch the bug as kids. My first audience was my family in Long Island. My first 'assistant' was my mother, whom I levitated on a broom in our living room.
For one of my specials, I said, "I'm going to make an airplane disappear." Okay! And the next day, everything went crazy - it was like breaking the internet before the internet.
Even though the vast majority of my work was outside television, the amount of creation and inventing that went into the TV shows was non stop and, unknown to me, a great strain.
My father wanted to be an actor, dreamed about being an actor, but he gave it up because my mom and his family told him, "You're never going to make it; it's too tough out there."
Expose every belief to the light of reason, discourse, facts, scientific observations; question everything, be sceptical because this is the only chance at life you will ever get.
Unlike other Jewish families, we didn't go out for Chinese food on Sundays, but we spent our time in a world of baking powder biscuits and the best shrimp cocktails that ever were.
I like to say magic is the world's second oldest profession, a mystical and often awe-inspiring spectacle that, throughout the ages, has blended superstition, trickery and religion.
I was not surprised by the results of the Horizon experiments, but I remain willing to observe and consider any and all other tests that are done under similarly precise conditions.
I'm just a human being that is in touch with myself. And I'm honest with myself. And I really, at the end of the day, don't care what people say. I never cared about what people say.
All magic is about transformation... the performance magician is telling you that you are the magician in your own life. You are the agent of transformation, your own transformation.
The magic kit we developed with Idea Village is an extraordinary success in 40,000 stores across America. The TV commercial we shot for it has produced amazing results - unbelievable.
When you see me do a five-minute thing, there's been about two years of preparation behind that. You know, I find that's what it takes to really make it the level of quality I prefer.
Magic is the only profession where it's easy to lie about your talent. If you do a trick and you can learn it very quickly, you can fool somebody into thinking you're a great magician.
Like every art form, there are jealousies and angers and competitiveness in magic. But there's camaraderie among magicians, whether you perform it for a living or you're an enthusiast.
I was considered a comedy magician. And - how do I put this without sounding egotistical? - it didn't take me long to realize that comedy magicians usually couldn't do comedy or magic.
I have real TV studios. If I have an idea, I can go shoot it. I can experiment. If I choose to air it or not, it's at my discretion. I don't have to do it to somebody else's time frame.
All my TV shows are done live in front of audiences, and all the material I take on the road and travel with them test them for hundreds and hundreds of shows before I shoot them for TV.
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.
If people are fans of 'Mindfreak,' they are going to be so excited with 'Believe.' They are actually going to see those illusions that people think can only happen with trick photography.
I've never formally trained for pain management, but I have a good understanding of how to conquer it. I just analyze the pain, feel it in the moment, and then mentally become numb to it.
Most magicians consider the palm an easy move to make. They are inclined to believe that they are 'getting away with it,' when they are in fact fortunate enough to have a polite audience.
I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
When people say to me don't the years go fast I have to be honest and say that whereas I don't realise where they go in the long term, I pack so much into a year it seems to take forever.
I really wanted to succeed. I wanted to be accepted. I read every magic book that I possibly could, studied every move, and by the time I was 12, they really accepted me, they embraced me.
Magic is used in espionage, all the time, for clandestine things. I've got a whole library from a gentleman who was hired by the CIA to create magic technology for the use of anti-terrorism.
That's one of the ways language evolved, by some very obscure form becoming common usage. And I must say that I'm very intrigued by use of language and slang, and criminal underground terms.
Magic speaks to the child in all of us. No matter how sophisticated we become, there's still a part of us who wants to believe in an alternative reality, where we can defy the laws of nature.
Well to be perfectly frank with you I never created art or have done demonstrations for anyone before myself artistically. I always do it to try to push my own envelope to be the best I can be.
Nostradamus himself confessed that the vague manner in which he wrote his "prophecies" was so that 'they could not possibly be understood until they were interpreted after the event and by it.'
I had an amazing childhood, lots of love. But my dad worked his tail off, getting up at 4 in the morning and going off at 5, 6 o'clock, yet he always had time to spend with his kids and his wife.
I questioned her further, and eventually got to talk to her doctor. And her doctor sort of shook his head and he said, I have examined her for throat cancer at least 15 times in the past few years.
I suppose that if I could only do one thing, a solid card effect would be pretty high on the list. That's the root of it all, sleight-of-hand. It's certainly the thing I feel most comfortable with.
It wasn't just about doing tricks. It's about taking an audience to another place, a special place, so they can really suspend their disbelief. Its about amazing the audience as well as moving them.
I questioned her further, and eventually got to talk to her doctor. And her doctor sort of shook his head and he said, 'I have examined her for throat cancer at least 15 times in the past few years.
To me, it's never about the trick. I don't care about how something works. I care about how people feel when they watch it. You know, that - that connection - that emotional connection is true magic.
I'm pretty fortunate that I'm in the films I'm in largely because the directors have asked me to be in them. I'd love to do more of them, but the writing and historical stuff I'll probably always do.
If you ever saw All That Jazz [1979], Bob Fosse was kind of raised dancing in strip joints and the whole era of burlesque, and that form ran his visual aesthetic, the pacing and rhythm of what he did.
In the winters, I enrolled in the hotel management program at Cornell University. I naively thought that I knew something about sleight-of-hand, entertainment and food, and that would be all I needed.
My father kind of encouraged me through that. Exactly,[work] not as an actor, obviously, but as someone in show business that had some success. He told me to live the impossible. "Live the impossible!"
We're all brilliant at something. I discovered my powers when I was four years old. When you're young you're more in touch with your real talents, but so often the 30 year slog knocks it out of people.
Magic is something that happens that appears to be impossible. What I call 'illusion magic' uses laws of science and nature that are already known. Real magic uses laws that haven't yet been discovered.
I believe that we're all connected to each other with an invisible spiritual thread through which we can transmit energy emissions and positive thinking. I want you to use your visualization techniques.
I think that the problem is that people fear so many things and they don't live life to its fullest. And for me as an artist, if God should want me to come this Wednesday to the end of my life, so be it.
There were really a bunch of old, old magic hobbyists at the time, some of them who actually had known [Harry] Houdini. You had to be 14 to go to these meetings, and he snuck me in at 12. It was glorious.
When I did my first few television specials, my illusions were so advanced that it took a couple of years before the other illusionists could even figure out what I was doing, let alone try to imitate me.