Chris Rock Quotes

All magic is 'Here’s a quarter, now it’s gone. You’re a jerk. Now it’s back. You’re an idiot. Show’s over.'

The problem with stage magic is that it looks really good, but everyone knows there's a trick box.

A clever conjurer is welcome anywhere, and those of us whose powers of entertainment are limited to the setting of booby-traps or the arranging of apple-pie beds must view with envy the much greater tribute of laughter and applause which is the lot of the prestidigitator with some natural gift for legerdemain.

This one guy, the worst guy in the music. The Yanni man. You know Yanni? First of all, anyone who looks like a magician and doesn't do magic, I don't like. I don't even like magic, I hate it. But I love the word, "Ta-da"! I love that word! I don't get to say it, right? I never do any magic. You just can't go around walking, "Ta-da!" "Ta-da!" "Ta-da!" The only time I can say it is when I do something really stupid or surprising. Like if I go out all night drinking and hitting strip clubs and I come home and I still got some money... "Ta-da!" I thought I was broke. Why does my jaw hurt?

You know, I'm not very good at magic - I can only do half of a trick. Yes - I'm a member of the Magic Semi-circle.

Because I have been a magician for many years, people have often asked me whether I ever have sawn a woman in half. I reply, Oh, yes I've sawn over seventy women in half in my lifetime, and I'm learning the second half of the trick now.

I had decided to be a magician well before I decided to be a writer. I was the little boy who would get up on-stage and do magic wearing a fake mustache, which would fall off during the performance. I'm still trying to perform those tricks. Now I do it with writing.

I don't think you can say something is or isn't magic. That's what was cool about Houdini, because he was a magician who had a magic show, but he was also an escape artist, and they kind of, over time, blended together. They both kind of enhance each other, I think.

One day, I saw a magic show, and I was like, 'I have to learn how to do this!' Every time I went to Las Vegas, I had to get at least two or three tricks from the magic shops.

I wish what I do was all real. Some of it's real, some of it's an illusion and I try to blur the line between both, but unfortunately I've got to be honest with you. Taking a $1 bill and turning it into a $100 - unfortunately it's not real.

As a kid, I always was obsessed with Houdini.

I've always performed magic as a kid.

There's magic all around us: Our smartphones are magical, 3-D printers are magical. So I feel that as a magician, if I can pull off something that seems real and convincing enough that I can explain why it's happening and have people believe it, it really is fascinating. And funny.

Mr. Norrell is like a librarian trying to do magic... That's the story of my career, really. I stand next to good looking men and make them look better!

We all enjoy a magic show, but we don't demand a Q&A afterward explaining how it was done.

If you do magic, it's the quickest most fraudulent route to impressing people.

Magicians disappear all the time, but as soon as a regular person does it, everyone is all scared. "Tom's gone!" "Is he a magician?" "No." "Then let's print up some flyers!"

I think the best thing about being dumb is that it makes magic a lot better. Where the hell did that rat come from? I dunno, but I'm calling the cops because he just cut that lady in half.

I had loved magic tricks from the time I was six or seven. I bought books on magic. I did magic acts for my parents and their friends. I was aiming for show business from early days, and magic was the poor man's way of getting in: you buy a trick for $2, and you've got an act.

It is human nature to want to believe in the wizardry of the magician--but also to turn against him and to scorn him the moment that he commits the slightest error that reveals his trickery. Those in the audience are embarrassed to have been so easily astonished, and they blame the performer for their gullibility.

If you go to a magic show, you don't want to see logic.

I'm fascinated by the similarities and differences between comedians and magicians.

For me, the most exciting thing is to create good magic that's entertaining for an audience, and it would be lovely if a magician was fooled as well.

My interest was magic, believe it or not. I became an amateur magician and did something like 400 magic shows through my teen years.

Harry Collins was the first magician I ever saw back in 1965 when I was five years old. He was doing a magic show and I was the volunteer from the audience.