Illusionism Quotes

Film is a truly magical medium. You can create illusions of reality, make people think they've seen things that they really haven't - like blowing a guy's head off with a shotgun.

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 discovered at the age of six that everything was a phony, worked with mirrors. Since then, I've always wanted to be a magician.

We're charlatans in a way, we're magic people. Part of the behind the scenes stuff is to loosen you up, to make you feel that you are experiencing this. This is my style, I did it in Looking for Richard, too. And I figure, if I can weave it into the actual play and get the audience interested, like the robes going up and down, they'll pay attention long enough to consume it.

I needed more knowledge in rigging and knotting. I started collecting books on knots and really learning more and more. That's how it started. And also in magic, of course. With a piece of rope, you can do magic.

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

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. That is the subject that, if you have a brain in your head, is always dealt with in magic. The smarter the tricks you're doing, the more that' s an important thing.

This speaker reminds me of my childhood in Budapest. There were gypsy magicians who came to town to entertain us children. But as I recollect, there was one important difference: the gypsy only seemed to violate the laws of nature, he never really violated them!

I always say that I love magic but I hate magicians. I like being fooled. If you wave your hands in front of my face and I think you're doing a trick, I'm easily impressed. If you pull a quarter out of my ear, I'm quite certain you're a wizard. But I don't like the way most magicians don't act like they're magical; they act like show business dicks.

The great trouble with magicians is the fact that they believe when they have bought a certain trick or piece of apparatus, and know the method of procedure, that they are full-fledged mystifiers.

We are all illusionists and that's why we are attracted to drag queens. This whole world is an illusion. It's not real.

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.

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.

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.

The existence of tricks does not imply the absence of magic.

And the same things look bent and straight when seen in water and out of it, and also both concave and convex, due to the sight's being mislead by the colors, and every sort of confusion of this kind is plainly in our soul. And, then, it is because they take advantage of this affection in our nature that shadow painting, and puppeteering, and many other tricks of the kind fall nothing short of wizardry.

Everything is an illusion.

I no longer worry whether a painting is about something or not. I am only concerned with the expectation, from a flat surface, of an illusion.

Acting is a form of deception, and actors can mesmerize themselves almost as easily as an audience.

Every true artist must, in his own way, be a magician, a charlatan.

Modern American magic, late 20th century magic, is tremendously disrespectful of the audience.

I love the way painting is so full of illusionistic possibilities.

Magic and new technology have always walked hand in hand - even back in the days of Robert Houdin.

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