David Blaine Quotes

I don't think you can say something is or isn't magic. That's what was cool about Houdini, because he was a magician who had a magic show, but he was also an escape artist, and they kind of, over time, blended together. They both kind of enhance each other, I think.

I'd like to bring magic back to the place it used to be 100 years ago.

I think everything I do is normal, not paranormal but normal. It's using the power of the mind to achieve whatever we can endure.

I thought instead of burying myself under dirt, I'd bury myself under water so everybody could see that you're there.

Michael Jackson did something that no one else in history has managed - he connected with people on every level imaginable, all over the world. He seemed to speak to people at their very core and achieved the impossible. He reached people on a deep emotional level. And that is what any great artist or showman dreams of doing. That is why Michael Jackson was so special to me.

Magic is not about having a puzzle to solve. It's about creating a moment of awe and astonishment. And that can be a beautiful thing

I consider myself a showman, and I love magic, and I love art, and I love performance, and they're all separate.

My mother encouraged it so much. She was so supportive. Even if as a kid, I would do the dumbest trick, which now that I look back on some things, she would love it, she would say that's amazing, or if I'd make the ugliest drawing, she would hang it up. She was amazing.

I think anybody can do any of these if they train. I don't recommend it, but anybody could do it if there was a need.

I do a lot of research on what people have done in the past.

I think great whites are the most beautiful and perfect creatures I've ever seen.

If I asked you to stand in one spot for 35 hours or a certain length of time, you could do it.

I remember my mother had this deck of cards that her mother had given her and that she passed on to me. It was a gypsy tarot deck that I used to carry everywhere.

To most magicians, cards themselves are marvels ... For one thing, they feel special in your hand. Touching them, holding them, shuffling - the whole process is almost poetic. If you're in a room full of magicians and someone just mentions the word cards, within seconds, everyone is digging into their pockets and pulling out a deck of cards. It's one of the most amazing feelings ever.

My only fear is the unknown.

I remember finding a Houdini book at the library and seeing an image of him chained on the side of a building. He looked so intense and scary, and I couldn't get that image out of my head. That started building up my love of magic.

You don't get into magic ... Magic gets into you.

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.

Whether you're shuffling a deck of cards or holding your breath, magic is pretty simple: It comes down to training, practice, and experimentation, followed up by ridiculous pursuit and relentless perseverance.

Well, I also love magic, which is, you know, different than showmanship. Magic's an art where you use slight of hand or illusion to create wonder.

I've always liked artists like Chris Burden, who would take performances, put them in galleries, and then do things that were on the edge.

I think that, when you die, you go back to where you came from before you were born. So I don't think death is a bad thing.

Basically, I was a kid growing up with a single mother in Brooklyn.

We are all capable of infinitely more than we believe.

People haven't even begun to tap into the potential of what the mind is possible of doing. We only use a certain percentage of our brains.

As a Magician, I try to show things to people that seem impossible. And I think magic whether I'm holding my breath or shuffling a deck of cards is pretty simple: It's practice, it's training and it's experimenting while pushing through the pain to be the best that I can be. And that's what magic is to me.

As children we believe that anything is possible, the trick is to never forget it.

In truth, the only restrictions on our capacity to astonish ourselves and each other are imposed by our own minds.