Illusionists Quotes

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

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

People do not come to a Penn & Teller show to see a magic show. They just don't. They come to see weird stuff that they can see no place else, that will make them laugh and make the little hairs stand up on the backs of their necks.

Penn & Teller stopped doing practical jokes, and the reason is we got much too good at it.

All spiritual practices are illusions created by illusionists to escape illusion.

Actors are con men and con men are actors.

Nobody who is a Penn & Teller fan thinks of us first and foremost as magicians, but as a comedy team.

Then again, what are liars if not great magicians?

Magicians and scientists are, on the face of it, poles apart. Certainly, a group of people who often dress strangely, live in a world of their own, speak a specialized language and frequently make statements that appear to be in flagrant breach of common sense have nothing in common with a group of people who often dress strangely, speak a specialized language, live in ... er.

Magicians are definitely more arrogant. They're kind of like "Abra Kadabra, you're an idiot," they don't let you in on the joke. Comedians, you're always in on the joke unless it's Andy Kaufman.

I intend to do the Penn & Teller show until they pry my cheesy magic wand from my cold dead fingers.

In point of fact magicians appear to have often developed into chiefs and kings.

I'm a big Penn & Teller fan. But I myself was never very good; I was a teenage magician who performed at kids' parties. I can still perform a vanish, credibly, and I still, in special circumstances, will make a balloon animal.

How pale is the art of sorcerers, witches, and conjurors when compared with that of the government's Treasury Department!

Magicians are the people who began to use film as an illusion on stage.

When I did my first few television specials, my illusions were so advanced that it took a couple of years before the other illusionists could even figure out what I was doing, let alone try to imitate me.

Magicians can do more by means of faith than physicians by the truth.

You don't get into magic. Magic gets into you.

I was the youngest member of the New York International Brotherhood of Magicians. It was me and a bunch of 60-year-old Jewish men.

I fell in love with that movie [Now You See Me]. I liked the actors. I thought it was an interesting world. When they called me with the opportunity to direct the next one, the first question I needed to address was, what are we going to do to make it different? How can I add something to the franchise? If I can't add anything, then there's no reason for me to do it.

If I had auditioned for 'Merlin' on magic alone, I don't think I'd have got it. Like any kid, I probably had a magic kit, but it's not something I ever pursued. I've never watched a magic show like David Copperfield or used him to base my character on, but I really like David Blaine and Darren Brown. They are doing wonders.

Phony psychics like Uri Geller have had particular success in bamboozling scientists with ordinary stage magic, because only scientists are arrogant enough to think that they always observe with rigorous and objective scrutiny, and therefore could never be so fooled while ordinary mortals know perfectly well that good performers can always find a way to trick people.

I know magicians and I know magic and I say this: all magicians lie and this one more than most.

Minor magicians take pains to fit this traditional wizardly bill. By contrast, the really powerful magicians take pleasure in looking like accountants.

Everything that you'd see on The Ed Sullivan Show was at the Tannen's Magic. You'd think that if you could afford a trick like Doc Nixon's Dove Vanish, then you could be on The Ed Sullivan Show as an 8-year-old kid.