David Copperfield Quotes about Magic

The real secret of magic lies in the performance.

It wasn't just about doing tricks. It's about taking an audience to another place, a special place, so they can really suspend their disbelief. Its about amazing the audience as well as moving them.

The most important thing is presentation.

Before there can be wonders, there must be wonder.

Magic is the only profession where it's easy to lie about your talent. If you do a trick and you can learn it very quickly, you can fool somebody into thinking you're a great magician.

It is the unspoken ethic of all magicians to not reveal the secrets.

From the very beginning, I studied acting, directing, lighting, dance and movement. I didn't rely on just the magic to take place. It's a shame that a lot of magicians just rely on the trick itself and they have no other abilities. They get away with the wonder factor, and I don't think that's enough. It's great, but it's not enough.

You have to learn certain skills to present magic.

You can feel better about yourself in a very short period of time depending on the kind of magic that you are doing.

Magicians lose the opportunity to experience a sense of wonder.

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.

I was teaching magic at NYU when I was 16.

I was published in Tarbell Course in Magic when I was 12.

It's really hard to think of one kind of magic as a favorite. I've been really fortunate in that I've been able to perform such a diverse range of things.

As I did more of that, I realized, "Well, maybe I should do more magic."

I fell in love with magic acts and bridged into that.

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.

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.

I invented magic stuff; it came very easily. Now, I sucked at everything else, but I was good at magic as a kid.

When I started doing magic as a kid, my parents had no problem.

There were really a bunch of old, old magic hobbyists at the time, some of them who actually had known [Harry] Houdini. You had to be 14 to go to these meetings, and he snuck me in at 12. It was glorious.

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.

I discovered that magic tricks got me more attention from the girls in my class when I was nine - so a magician was born!

[ Gil Cates] said, "You've got a point of view with your magic. There's this comedy to it, there's drama. You're telling stories with magic."

Magic was a thing that, when I did it, it made all the kids go, "Ah, that's cool."