Vik Muniz Quotes

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.

You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.

What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?

What's the main thing that makes magic magic? The fact that no one believes that it's possible.

The great dream merchant Disney was a success because make-believe was what everyone seemed to need in a spiritually empty land.

Perhaps life is actually more confusing and unknowable to an adult than a child, but grown-ups have learned to deceive themselves and act as if they understand what's going on; and some are elected to high office on the basis of their ability to create this impression.

I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth.

Magic in cinema is a bit like ventriloquism on the radio.

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

It's very difficult to distinguish between what a person believes and what they say they believe.

People say they love truth, but in reality they want to believe that which they love is true.

The whole thing's illusion, [Jacob], and there's nothing wrong with that. It's what people want from us. It's what they expect.

How disturbing it is that our illusions are often our most important beliefs.

Action is thought tempered by illusion.

If only we can give them faith that mountains can be moved, they will accept the illusion that mountains are moveable, and thus an illusion may become reality.

I don't think there's really observational magic.

Truths are illlusions which we have forgotten are illusions.

A thing can only live through a pious illusion.

Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that's exactly the way we want it to be.

Everything that I spent my entire life dedicated to, which is this art of mentalism, of magic... I don't see it and feel it and experience it like I first did when I was getting involved in this art. I try to look at it as a spectator but unless I get amnesia I still can't overlook that. I can appreciate the performance but I would love to be fooled.

Magicians are the most honest people in the world; they tell you they're gonna fool you, and then they do it.

History is nothing more than the belief in the senses, the belief in falsehood.

The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.

Illusions are the truths we live by until we know better.

Fairy's side note: Even people who don't believe in magic really do.