A Quote by Larry Niven
If one must explain a magic trick, one should do so after the show is over.
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I had loved magic tricks from the time I was six or seven. I bought books on magic. I did magic acts for my parents and their friends. I was aiming for show business from early days, and magic was the poor man's way of getting in: you buy a trick for $2, and you've got an act.
One of my rules is never explain. A writer is a lot like a magician, if you explain how the trick works then a lot of the magic turns mundane.
When I'm traveling a lot the flight attendants will ask what I do and if I say I'm a magician then I have to do a trick. But if it's a red eye flight and I haven't slept at all, I'll say I'm a comedian. And then they say, "Do a joke." But if you're a magician you should be able to do a trick anywhere, any time of day. And if it's not the best situation to showcase what I do then I'll offer them tickets to my show that night. Trying to do a magic trick right outside of an airplane lavatory isn't the best viewing conditions.
The goal is to really blur the line. Can you perform a magic trick in a way that someone doesn't think it's a magic trick but is something amazing they haven't seen before? Then they have to wrestle with reality.
You see guys going up to girls in bars and saying, 'Oh, can I show you a trick?' It's a tool. I find it kind of sad; it breaks my heart a little bit. They should try to use their own personalities. It sort of smacks of using magic as a crutch, which is not what it should be.
A dream is a massive magic trick of the mind. No amount of science could explain away the mysterious wonder.
And that's what I don't like about magic, Captain. 'cos it's *magic*. You can't ask questions, it's magic. It doesn't explain anything, it's magic. You don't know where it comes from, it's magic! That's what I don't like about magic, it does everything by magic!
I loved magic, and so I would practice my magic tricks in front of a mirror for hours and hours and hours because I was told that you must practice, you must practice and never present a trick before it's ready.
People should get married because they have finally seen the folly of being single: "Oh, this is all just kind of a bad magic trick. I just keep bending over to reach for this wallet on a string. How much longer am I gonna do that?"
My experience in work, even going to work with Scorsese, is that people always think there's some magic trick. There's no magic trick. The people who are really good at what they do do simple things really, really well.
There are somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 working magic professionals in the world, and since we debuted our Magic Kit, we have sold over 1 million. So it's for people who have a strong interest, but be it for one trick or a lifetime, we will be there for them. We will guide them so they don't waste their money.
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.
Disappearing act? That's a magic trick, isn't it? I like magic tricks!
An actress friend of mine shared a great trick. She told me to stick my tongue behind my teeth when I smile to keep from over-smiling. If you smile without doing it, sometimes your gums show a little too much. It's an actor's trick!
You know, I'm not very good at magic - I can only do half of a trick. Yes - I'm a member of the Magic Semi-circle.
One thing you learn doing magic tricks for a living is how close every performance of every magic trick is to disaster. There are no robust magic tricks. They're all hanging from a thread - sometimes literally.
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