Ricky Jay Quotes

We actors are superstitious creatures. We do all the homework, and we put all of the components together, but there's always one key aspect that we're not in charge of, really, and that's magic. You are always on the lookout for where and how that magic is going to ignite.

You can't really plan with acting!

Golf is a weird sport. Some days you got it. Some days you don't.

Acting is a strange job because your control is very limited.

Writing a song is actually quite easy. Writing a good one is very, very difficult.

The Olympics are always a special competition, it is very difficult to predict what will happen.

Every performance is different. That's the beauty of it.

Comedy is the most difficult thing to do. Easily the most difficult.

Comedy is very difficult. I love it because when you do it right, it's the best feeling in the world.

All you can do is really the prep work and make sure you're ready to hit each golf shot. Outside of that, you're not sure really what's going to happen. It's a funny game, but I think that's why I love it. You never know, one day to the next; you could go shoot 62, and the next day you're going to shoot 78, and you can't predict it.

Every lap is different.

Hitting is not an exact science.

I always did music, but music is an easier thing for me. Making videos and doing comedy things was more of a challenge, so I was more interested in that. Music is a little bit more automatic.

You can work on a movie for years, and you won't know until you show it to an audience for the first time if it makes any sense to them at all, if they're touched, if they find it funny, so it's endlessly exciting, because failure is just right there all the time, and your chances of success don't rise that much based on the fact that you succeeded last time.

Depending upon shock tactics is easy, whereas writing a good play is difficult. Pubic hair is no substitute for wit.

I don't look down to an audience. I look up to them. They respond to quality.

As an actor you want to explore something you haven't done.

Life has very little even ground.

I felt I could become a performer who stood out, who challenged the way things were done and make it more creative and also encourage men and women to not be afraid of their sexuality.

Acting's entertainment. It's not brain surgery.

Prediction is difficult - particularly when it involves the future.

Life seemed even more of a guessing game than usual.

The joy is when you work with great actors, it just comes to life in a way that you never even imagined.

If the unusual never happened there would be no difference in people and then there wouldn't be any fun in life. The game would become merely a matter of addition and subtraction. It would make of us a race of bookkeepers with plodding minds. It's the guessing that develops a man's brain power.

When you're performing, you're creating a moment.