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" If you read Shakespeare's stage directions, all the gore and violence is right in there. "

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" If there isn't at least the threat of violence in art, it tends to be kind of tiresome. "

" In real life, the most important decision you ever make is, where does reality leave off and make-believe begin? If you make a mistake about that, you're dead. You know, you're out on the street corner. You think there's no bus coming. You step out, you're dead. "

" If you do something that you're proud of, that someone else understands, that is a thing of beauty that wasn't there before - you can't beat that. "

" The place we want to explore unpleasantness in the real world is in art. "

" 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. "

" Onstage, I find absolutely nothing but exhilaration in not talking. "

" People come up to me on the street and make some little joke - like they'll say, 'Excuse me, sir, what time is it?' And I'll say, you know, '5:15,' and they'll say, 'Hey! Made you talk!' And that's merely a way of saying, 'I know your work and I like you.' "

" Every time you perform a magic trick, you're engaging in experimental psychology. If the audience asks, 'How the hell did he do that?' then the experiment was successful. "

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

" I'm more apt to cry at something beautiful than at something sad. "

" I believe in art. "

" Neuroscientists are novices at deception. "

" The silent thing onstage allows for a kind of intimacy that no conversation can have. If I just shut up, we're forced to look at each other and really confront that moment. "

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

" As a kid, I was a Hitchcock lover; I cared about the dark side of things. "

" I'm a lazy sod. "

" Magicians have done controlled testing in human perception for thousands of years. "

" Given my absolute druthers, I would certainly like to see that every part of my body is used for spare parts for science. "

" Doing beautiful things is its own reward. "

" In America, magic has never been an important part of peoples' lives. "

" To most people who have a point of view, merely being on TV is an intrinsic good. "

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

" Sometimes, magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect. "

" Reality seems so simple. We just open our eyes and there it is. But that doesn't mean it is simple. "

" People take reality for granted. "

" When a magician lets you notice something on your own, his lie becomes impenetrable. "

" The Boy Scouts of America is no longer entirely what people think it is. Essentially, it has been hijacked by religious conservatives. "

" Nothing fools you better than the lie you tell yourself. "

" Comedically, unpleasantness is great fun. "

" I always assumed I'd spend my life happily performing in artsy-fartsy little theaters. "