Doug Henning Quotes

All David Blaine is is a good-looking magician.

There are performers who have built their whole career doing magic on TV and can't really perform live at all - don't really have jobs and skills.

[Bob] Dylan began to incorporate things into that scene that were controversial then. He got shouted at in Newport when he played electric guitar, for instance. There was a certain purity that was sought among those people.

Mine is not a traditional music, but it comes from a tradition.

As a kid, I always was obsessed with Houdini.

What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing.

At the same time all this was happening, there was a folk song revival movement goingon, so the commercial music industry was actually changed by the Civil Rights Movement.

Dave Van Ronk, for those who don't know him - probably most don't know - was a folk singer. He's kind of the biggest person on the scene in 1961 in the folk revival in Greenwich Village, biggest person on the scene until Bob Dylan showed up.

I went to NYU completely with the idea I wanted to be the next David Copperfield.

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.

I've always done magic as a hobby. I've done it professionally, too.

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!

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.

My favorite Bob Dylan record is the very first one where he sings one Bob Dylan song and the rest of them are his interpretations of the Dust Bowl-era folk songs, or even going back as far as the mass influx of people coming into the U.S. during the gold rush. His interpretations of those songs are incredible.

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.

When the success of 'Crazy Rich' hit, it's like everybody knows exactly who you are, and the way that they speak to you is different. I've stayed the same throughout. It's just people's perception of you changes.

I've grown up on American songwriters my whole life - listening to Paul Simon and Bob Dylan and people like John Prine - you know, classic, real songwriters. They've been the lion's share of what I've really focused on as a writer and as influences, too.

I'm a proud mainstream musician, but having said that, I do firmly believe there's more to musical talent in India than just Bollywood.

Actually, I'm the Scottish Woody Guthrie.

I've grown up on Bob Dylan and all that, but there was a certain standard set up by people before 1955.

I'm a magician. A lot of people don't know that I've won awards. I used to do big stage shows.

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.

When I first moved to London, there was talk of a folk revival, with annoying names like nu-folk that made me feel slightly ill.

People view you differently when you're a world champion.

Ever since I was a kid and watched magicians on stage, like David Copperfield or Siegfried and Roy, I instantly knew how they did everything. In my head, it just all worked.