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" Not only do I lie, I take real pleasure in lying, in the transmission of magic effects. "

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" Every acting gig isn't the same, every writing job isn't the same, every live performance isn't the same - the challenge is the level of difficulty or ease, and that may vary. "

" For me, the most exciting thing is to create good magic that's entertaining for an audience, and it would be lovely if a magician was fooled as well. "

" My father was the Formica King of Long Island, and my mother was the daughter of a Bengal Lancer in India. "

" Magicians from the nineteenth century threw cards distances, but I think I'm the first one who made a thing about using them as weapons. "

" I was considered a comedy magician. And - how do I put this without sounding egotistical? - it didn't take me long to realize that comedy magicians usually couldn't do comedy or magic. "

" I know absolutely nothing about the 20th Century. "

" For the most part, magic secrets are available on a level that's overwhelming and frightening, and they are very accessible if you do the tiniest bit of digging. But, that said, there's a certain group of individuals, in which I am included, who are very tight about secrets and don't share them with anyone. "

" Like every art form, there are jealousies and angers and competitiveness in magic. But there's camaraderie among magicians, whether you perform it for a living or you're an enthusiast. "

" I suppose that if I could only do one thing, a solid card effect would be pretty high on the list. That's the root of it all, sleight-of-hand. It's certainly the thing I feel most comfortable with. "

" In the winters, I enrolled in the hotel management program at Cornell University. I naively thought that I knew something about sleight-of-hand, entertainment and food, and that would be all I needed. "

" The pain is bad magicians ripping off good ones, doing magic badly, and making a mockery of the art. "

" I always read what I write out loud, and I did that long before any radio thing. My editor finds that unusual. "

" I think the toughest thing about being an actor in a film is to be with a director who doesn't know what they want. And that can be really, really frustrating. "

" Sitting with a deck of cards in your hand all day is an obsession. Visiting print shops and bookstores and libraries is an obsession. And writing about this is an obsession. I think, in general, most collectors are obsessed. I think the only form of a rationalized greed is when you're collecting something you are supposedly serious about. "

" To obfuscate the reconstruction of the effect - when a magician is fooled by another magician doing magic. In my career that's not been the major passion, but it's been the passion of a number of my mentors. The crowning achievement for them would be to create magic good enough to fool other magicians. "

" That's one of the ways language evolved, by some very obscure form becoming common usage. And I must say that I'm very intrigued by use of language and slang, and criminal underground terms. "

" Theft annoys me more than anything else. The purloining of effects from another magician. Some people think it's massive to steal the secrets of nuclear reactors, but to steal a card move is trivial. They're wrong. "

" I've been really lucky in terms of film projects with people, terrific actors and also writers and directors that I really respect. "

" I grew up like Athena - covered with playing cards instead of armor - and, at the age of seven, materialized on a TV show, doing magic. "

" Unlike other Jewish families, we didn't go out for Chinese food on Sundays, but we spent our time in a world of baking powder biscuits and the best shrimp cocktails that ever were. "

" I don't know what first got me to attack melons. It's not like I ate a bad one and got an upset stomach. It just eventually seemed like the appropriate fruit. "

" One of the best sleight-of-hand guys I know is a plumber. "

" I'm probably the only kid in history whose parents made him stop taking music lessons. They made me stop studying the accordion. "

" I think a lot of people just assumed I came to L.A. to do more television and get into show business. "

" I love amazing people. I love dazzling them. That's why I think performing magic is one of the greatest things a person can do. "

" I never talk much about my family, but my grandfather was friendly with these guys, with magicians and ventriloquists on the highest levels, and I was just... interested. "

" I wasn't obsessed by magic. People say, 'How you can you claim you practiced eight hours a day and weren't obsessed?' Well, people go to a job they don't even like for eight hours a day; it's not obsessive if it's something you like. "

" I do think deception... There's something kind of odd about tricking people for a living, but ultimately, it's a remarkably honest profession, when you think about it. If you violate that code, and you say you're not using camera tricks, and then you do, I actually think that's a kind of serious moral issue. "

" I started doing radio pieces with no clear, preconceived idea, except that I have a tendency to be theatrical. "

" I certainly was performing before my writing was published, because I was performing when I was very young. And the thing is I'm very comfortable on stage, so a large portion of my act did come from ad-libs. "