Doug Henning Quotes

And the nature of magic is all in the person's experience. Whether the magician is using a highly complex sleight of hand or he's just got two cards that are the same, it doesn't matter: it's how it's sold and how magical it is for the person that matters.

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

Magic is an art form where you lie and tell people you are lying.

My goal was becoming the next David Copperfield. I learned how to be a performer by emulating him as a kid - his formula of just talking to people onstage, being free to improvise, being charming and witty with a crowd, together with great, beautiful magic.

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

Magic has both feet planted in cheap vaudeville and childish posturing; in dishonesty and therefore not in art.

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.

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.

Generally, magicians don't know what to say, so they say stupid and redundant crap like, 'Here I am holding a red ball.'

I consider myself a showman, and I love magic, and I love art, and I love performance, and they're all separate.

Indian street magic tends to be very gory, blood and guts. One trick is for a magician to take a knife and appear to cut his kid's head almost off. The magician then says to the crowd, 'Well I can continue to cut off my son's head or you can all give me some money.' Then he wanders around and takes 10 rupees from everyone and restores his son.

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.

When I was six years old, I fell in love with magic. For Christmas, I got a magic box and a very old book on card manipulation. Somehow, I was more interested in pure manipulation than in all the silly little tricks in the box.

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

The real secret of magic lies in the performance.

All types of magic performance have a purpose. Even if it's an amateur who's trying out slight of hand on YouTube.

I started performing when I was 9 or 10, doing magic.

I've always performed magic as a kid.

When you're learning how to do magic, the first rule is 'never reveal a secret.' In a way, by telling someone I'm a magician, it kind of gives away the best secret of all... How interesting to take the magician out of the equation of a magic show.

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.

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.'

But when I go off stage I don't have a deck of cards with me all the time.

When I started out back in Louisville, there was Harry Collins. He was my first teacher. He saw that I was so obsessed with magic that he taught me the love of magic.

You have to learn certain skills to present magic.