Modern American magic, late 20th century magic, is tremendously disrespectful of the audience.
The only place we were really told to tone it down – where other people would use the word censorship, but I wouldn’t – was when we did MTV right after the Beavis and Butt-head thing.
Performers have the right to say what they want to, and anyone paying money has the right to accept or reject the art and entertainment that’s available.
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.
No one can tell you the rules of ‘Celebrity Apprentice.’ No one. Donald Trump just does what he wants, which is mostly pontificating to people who are sucking up to him, while the network people try to manipulate him into making the highest-rated show they can.
My tolerance for crazy people is, I think, high a tolerance as you’re ever going to find. I love being around David Allen Coe. I would have loved to hang out with Tiny Tim. I can listen to Sun Ra on a tape-recording rant.
My hair is way, way long. I’ve hitchhiked across the country a zillion times. I’ve ridden in every car. I was never a hippie. It takes more than long hair.
Teller and I worked Renaissance Festivals and street performing – actually more real, no kidding around, Philadelphia street performing than we did Renaissance Festivals.
I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.
The only difference between Obama and Bush is that Obama is killing more people. He’s about double the numbers now. Can you imagine if McCain had won and did precisely what Obama has done, with every speech and every political maneuver overseas? There’d be riots in the streets about the people we’re killing. And yet because it’s Obama, and he’s better looking and better at reading the teleprompter, we let him get away with it.
If stupid hippies hadn’t killed nuclear power, we’d have nuclear power plants, safer and cheaper than coal-fired plants, all over, and electric cars really would be zero emissions.
For atheists, everything in the world is enough and every day is holy. Every day is an atheist holiday. It’s a day that we’re alive.
In any conflict, the crazier party generally wins.
There should be an ease and clarity to anything that’s real and from the heart. Things that are true shouldn’t have tricks.
Astrology is a cousin of racism.
The nightmare of Trump is not that he doesn’t care what people think; it’s that he desperately cares what people think.
Meeting our audiences, or at least the members of the audience who would like to meet us, makes us different from other entertainers. We aren’t scared of our audiences. We’ve learned that the crowds that other entertainers might hate – the quiet crowds – include many people who are loving the show. I love quiet crowds now; I don’t see them as lacking enthusiasm, I see them as paying attention. We’ve learned that a joke that didn’t get a loud laugh might be someone’s favorite line.
You have no chance of scaring me with death, all the fear possible is contained in life.
The evidence shows you that two things have been true throughout mankind’s history: One, things always get better. Two, people always think they’re getting worse.
There is no god.” I’ve said that sentence on Glenn Beck’s TV show in front of his live audience at his studio in the Texas Bible Belt. I’ve told Republicans that I like immigrants. I’ve told Democrats that I dig rich people. I’ve told sane people that I like lawyers. But.
Desire for something impossible does not make it less impossible.