I think magic, whether I'm holding my breath or shuffling a deck of cards, is pretty simple. It's practice, it's training, and it's - It's practice, it's training and experimenting, while pushing through the pain to be the best that I can be.
All David Blaine is is a good-looking magician.
The skills that we have are the actual magic skills - not the performing skills. We have to separate those. But the actual skills that make the tricks work, we don't get to use again.
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 can read minds, but I'm illiterate.
I always wanted to do magic tricks - I feel like that could be the the next wave.
There is no matter as such—mind is the matrix of all matter.
When a magician lets you notice something on your own, his lie becomes impenetrable.
Graeme Smith is capable of reading other people's heads.
This whole world is mind's world, the product of the mind.
One of the things that Teller and I are obsessed with, one of the reasons that we're in magic, is the difference between fantasy and reality. That is the subject that, if you have a brain in your head, is always dealt with in magic. The smarter the tricks you're doing, the more that' s an important thing.
I have a sixth sense, but not the other five. If I wasn't making money, they'd put me away.
I never quite know how to describe what I do. I normally just say, 'Oh, I'm a magician', which probably puts fairly naff ideas in people's minds but is pleasantly conversation-stopping.
Magic came very easy for me when I was a kid. When I was 8 years old I started doing it, and by the time I was 12, I was already published in magic books.
Magic is the Special Olympics of entertainment.
Psychic, illusionist... I'm just doing the things that I find interesting and worthwhile.
...and Jack, who felt like he was on the cusp of being able to read minds and thought it would be all right if Luce wrote him down for that. ("I sense that you're okay with that, am I right?" He made a gun out of his fingers and clicked his tongue.)
Every time you perform a magic trick, you're engaging in experimental psychology. If the audience asks, 'How the hell did he do that?' then the experiment was successful.
I was damn lucky to choose this profession. I had no idea when I started out that I was really an illusionist and a magician.
I learned a lot. I really did. Millennium is a state of mind. I always thought of Frank Black as the greatest chess player that could take random pieces of information and string them together into a scenario that was accurate. I never thought of him as a psychic at all. We need people like that.
I had a magic kit. I never really followed through on it, but I had my phase of wanting to do it, sure.
Now me,” said Mr. Vandemar. “What number am I thinking of?” “I beg your pardon?” “What number am I thinking of?” repeated Mr. Vandemar. “It’s between one and a lot,” he added, helpfully.
For the most part, any serious magic show is not using very much technology newer than theatrical lights.
First of all, magicians practice a lot. It requires a lot of discipline. Second, you can't be afraid to be a leader, to go onstage, and you learn to have presence. You need to be able to visualize and connect and create. Most important, you learn to think outside the box.
Turn away from your animal kind, try to leave your body, just to live in your mind.
