Top 173 Magicians Quotes & Sayings - Page 2

I think for Lev [Grossman], C. S. Lewis was a huge inspiration from his childhood. I know that Brideshead Revisited is a book that he's incredibly found of and he took certain structural influences from that book that he brought into The Magicians.

Ever since I was a kid and watched magicians on stage, like David Copperfield or Siegfried and Roy, I instantly knew how they did everything. In my head, it just all worked.

Magicians disappear all the time, but as soon as a regular person does it, everyone is all scared. "Tom's gone!" "Is he a magician?" "No." "Then let's print up some flyers!"

That's the beauty of it. Have you seen the contraptions these magicians build to accomplish the most mundane feats? They are a bunch of fish covered in feathers trying to convince the public they can fly, I am simply a bird in their midst.

I'm sitting in the bus station, minding my own business, reading 'Ta-Da!' magazine; a magazine by and for gay magicians, but that's a different story.

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.

Do you believe then that the sciences would ever have arisen and become great if there had not before hand been magicians, alchemists, astrologers and wizards, who thirsted and hungered after abscondite and forbidden powers?

I started studying filmmakers, and I would say early on the ones that really inspired me the most were like the field magicians of music videos.

The impediment to scientific thinking is not, I think, the difficulty of the subject. Complex intellectual feats have been mainstays even of oppressed cultures. Shamans, magicians and theologians are highly skilled in their intricate and arcane arts. No, the impediment is political and hierarchical.

You'd go in the magic shop [as an 8-year-old ], and you'd walk up to the magicians doing stuff, and they'd turn their back on you. "Oh my gosh, I wish they would accept me." It really lit a fire. I really wanted to succeed.

Every kid loves fairy tales, stories of witches and giants and magicians. Then, when you get a little older you can't read fairy tales anymore.

The great trouble with magicians is the fact that they believe when they have bought a certain trick or piece of apparatus, and know the method of procedure, that they are full-fledged mystifiers.

Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.

The cosmetics world and mentalism are both arenas of deception, but I suppose the difference is that mentalists and magicians are more honest about it. People tell me I have good skin, and I tell them the magic secret is E45 cream: cheap, cheerful, and very effective.

[Psychics] use exactly the same gimmicks that we magicians do - the same physical methods, the same psychological methods - and they effectively and profoundly deceive millions of people around the earth, to their detriment.

Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist? Vladimir: Yes, yes, we're magicians.

That's the imagination that happens in the theater. That imagination is translated in film by the film magicians and all the technology.

Those magicians who object to the use of blood, have endeavored to replace it with incense. But, the bloody sacrifice, though more dangerous, is more efficacious. And for nearly all purposes, human sacrifice is the best.

I was always fascinated by fairy stories, fantasy, you know, demons, necromancers, gods and goddesses, everything that is out of our kin and out of our everyday world. I was always interested in enchantment and magicians and still am.

The idea that I [should] trust my eyes more than the stats, I don't buy that because I've seen magicians pull rabbits out of hats and I know that the rabbit's not in there.

Indeed, most magicians catch the bug as kids. My first audience was my family in Long Island. My first 'assistant' was my mother, whom I levitated on a broom in our living room.

My mother brought me magicians and witches, because I was very ugly, really revolting. So she thought somebody had put a spell on me - this is the truth - so she made me drink some horrible terrifying potions, for year.

If you look up "charming" in the dictionary, you'll see that it not only has references to strong attraction, but to spells and magic. Then again, what are liars if not great magicians?

Do you realize how much better the world would be if we all just treated each other the same way black dudes treat magicians?

It was just like a digital fixation with cards and math and science and then I started to look at images of great magicians from Houdini down the line.

Every once in a while, magicians strike gold. David Regal has created and produced the perfect close-up illusion.

Magic has a spiritual element, and is considered very important and of value, and magicians have always been a little bit silly, so if you're going to portray a modern day magician, there's gotta be a little silliness.

I always really liked magicians. I'm not even sure why - except that they know things other people don't, and they live in untidy rooms full of strange objects.

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

Basically the job of a magician is to do impossible things that challenge the nature of the universe. And I think some magicians buy into that perception a little too much. These days that turns people off a little bit. I'm not a wizard. I don't have special powers. If I did, I would not be doing magic for a living!

My first audition for 'The Magicians' came up in conversation with a close friend who, right then, handed me the first book.

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.

As a coach, we are not magicians; we work with the players and look to improve them and give them every opportunity, but if you are not creating or scoring goals over a consistent period of time, it is difficult for you as a coach.

Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.

Mentalist is the technical term for what I do and it covers everything from psychic medium through Uri Geller, through to magicians doing tricks with a mental theme.

Chicago is a big town for magicians and card hustlers. So when I was very young, a fellow sat me down and taught me the Three-Card Monte. And that kind of put me in a - pointed me towards easy money.

For me, I live for performing live because people look at magicians on television, and they always wonder, 'Is it a camera trick?' 'Is it a stooge?' whereas, live, they know there's no set-ups; there's no stooges.

He nodded nervously. ‘He looks like a magician. I hate magicians. They usually have rabbits.’ I stared at him. ‘You’re scared of bunnies?’ ‘Blah-hah-hah! They’re big bullies. Always stealing celery from defenceless satyrs.

This speaker reminds me of my childhood in Budapest. There were gypsy magicians who came to town to entertain us children. But as I recollect, there was one important difference: the gypsy only seemed to violate the laws of nature, he never really violated them!

Magicians are typically introverted; they don't tend to work with others, but I work with software programmers, composers, designers, so it's a very diverse group and the result is always more interesting than something I could have done by myself.

As I look out at all of you gathered here, I want to say that I don't see a room full of Parisians in top hats and diamonds and silk dresses. I don't see bankers and housewives and store clerks. No. I address you all tonight as you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.

I'm such a proponent of the theatrical experience and the cinematic experience, and we've reached this point where the magicians are not only giving away their tricks, but they're telling us how they're doing the tricks in advance before you even come to the magic show. It'd be nice to get a little of the mystery back in.

Magicians start by looking for blind spots, edges, vulnerabilities and limits of people's perception, so they can influence what people do without them even realizing it. Once you know how to push people's buttons, you can play them like a piano.

The more I look at most of the art movements, it's all occultism, when you get down to it. The Surrealists were openly talking about being magicians.

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

Most magicians consider the palm an easy move to make. They are inclined to believe that they are 'getting away with it,' when they are in fact fortunate enough to have a polite audience.

There will be guards,” Bast said. “And traps. And alarms. You can bet the house is heavily charmed to keep out gods.” “Magicians can do that?” I asked. I imagined a big can of pesticide labeled God-Away.

Actors are like magicians. They'll sit there and do all their tricks to each other. It's very competitive, and the goal is to get them bonding, to get them to know the real person as quickly as possible.

Okay, can you pass yourself off as a magician and gain Gerald's trust and pass us information about Celeste's plans and save all the magicians who want to be saved? Jaime asked. "Because if so awesome. I shall stay here and eat pie.

Children and babies should be held in the most sacred regard. We feel that they're the most natural and true magicians.

Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.

Suits are malevolent magicians' sleeves for socialists, full of patrician loops and tricks, small, embroidered, cryptic messages of deference and privilege. They are ever the uniform of the enemy. They are also the greatest British invention ever.

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.

Great liars are also great magicians.

I always wanted to go to the Chavez school but I could never afford it when I was growing up so a lot of my learning came from magic books and watching other magicians. I was also very lucky that I had a couple of really good magic teachers.

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.

The Magicians Apprentice was about someone from the low end of society manifesting magical power and how that completely messes up the balance of the whole system.

First of all, magicians practice a lot. It requires a lot of discipline. Second, you can't be afraid to be a leader, to go onstage, and you learn to have presence. You need to be able to visualize and connect and create. Most important, you learn to think outside the box.

You would be amazed how many magicians have died after being bitten by mad rabbits. It's far more common than you might think. -Angela the Herbalist

The Magicians brilliantly explores the hidden underbelly of fantasy and easy magic, taking what’s simple on the surface and turning it over to show us the complicated writhing mess beneath. It’s like seeing the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter through a 3-D magnifying glass.