Top 144 Quotes & Sayings by David Copperfield - Page 3

Everyone was talking about having airplanes disappear. And I said, "Wait, wait, wait. That's what you like? I'd tell you a story about something like my girlfriend leaving me, and the magic was really hard. The airplane thing was comparatively easy, and people liked that thing?" I realized at that moment, the power of the simple idea.

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.

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

My dreams are my dress rehearsals for my future.

Pippin had an opening number called "Magic to Do," and Jules Fisher, the brilliant lighting designer lit it. Tony Walton did all of the sets. As a kid I thought, "Wow, I'm seeing onstage what a MGM musical would look like live." It was that good, and it was directed by Bob Fosse.

Normally, I do magic on the stage. But I can make magic credible and resonate through a TV screen.

Magic is used in espionage, all the time, for clandestine things. I've got a whole library from a gentleman who was hired by the CIA to create magic technology for the use of anti-terrorism.

The more educated you get, the better shot you have to get it right, but if you're really trying something different, it's a challenge every time.

I'm trying to change theater, in my own way - not just magic. I say that humbly, because I'm learning every single day. I do 15 shows a week, and every single audience I have is like a test screening for you, when you listen and go, "Really? They laughed at that?" All over the stage I have lines, written onstage, that I'm changing every single day.

When you see me do a five-minute thing, there's been about two years of preparation behind that. You know, I find that's what it takes to really make it the level of quality I prefer.

I see people's need to dream, people's need to escape - you see it! That's why people come to comedy shows, that's why they come to your movies ... We're so needed in this world. Not as much as medicine , but to dream for a while.

There was a place in New York called Tannen's Magic. It still exists. But back in the day, it was really fantastic. You'd go into the old Wurlitzer Building, take the elevator to the 13th floor, which was labeled 14, because of bad luck, the elevator would open, and you'd be in heaven. It was all of these guys doing magic stuff with props. It's kind of gone now, that experience, the brick-and-mortar magic shop, but you really felt like you'd landed in the most amazing place in the world.

I'm inventing new principles. The audience has a point of view that no one can predict.

Magic came very easy for me when I was a kid. When I was 8 years old I started doing it, and by the time I was 12, I was already published in magic books

I went to visit Frank Capra, one of my idols, and did a kind of Judd Apatow interview with him. I said, "I'd like the Statue of Liberty to disappear, but I want to do it as a lesson in freedom, how valuable freedom is and what the world would be like without liberty." And Frank Capra looked at me and said, "David, I love your idea, but here's what you're going to do. You're going to try and it's not going to work; it's not going to disappear." And I said, "Mr. Capra, I can't do that."

To make [parents] happy, I went to Fordham University for three weeks, while at the same time running ads in Variety, "magician-actor David Copperfield."

I will now make a scorpion appear in Osama bin Laden's pants

I'm a big fan of the Pixar movies, and Ed Catmull, who wrote a book about his experiences producing them, talks about how it takes three or four years to get it right.

I could vanish the silk better than Ben Vereen - that was for sure. So I think maybe they said, "Okay, maybe he has something to offer." Years pass and I get a bit of a career, and Ben Vereen ends up hosting one of my specials where I walked through the Great Wall of China. Things came full circle in kind of an ironic way, when you have that honor of people that have influenced you so much host your show. It's a huge experience in your life.

I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

I really wanted to succeed. I wanted to be accepted. I read every magic book that I possibly could, studied every move, and by the time I was 12, they really accepted me, they embraced me.

All the lawyers and the business stuff is work, but actually creating stuff isn't work. It's good effort. It's hard work. But, it's not work. It doesn't feel like work because the result is very rewarding.

All my TV shows are done live in front of audiences, and all the material I take on the road and travel with them test them for hundreds and hundreds of shows before I shoot them for TV.

For one of my specials, I said, "I'm going to make an airplane disappear." Okay! And the next day, everything went crazy - it was like breaking the internet before the internet.