Magicians Quotes

We walked out of there, and for the first time I felt the mood of a night without feeling that an author was ramming it down my throat for story purposes. I looked at the clean-swept, star-reaching cubism of the Radio City area and its living snakes of neon, and I suddenly thought of an Evelyn Smith story the general idea of which was "After they found out the atom bomb was magic, the rest of the magicians who enchanted refrigerators and washing machines and the telephone system came out into the open." I felt a breath of wind and wondered what it was that had breathed. I heard the snoring of the city and for an awesome second felt it would roll over, open its eyes, and ... speak. ~ Theodore Sturgeon

Artists are magicians and I definitely think John Lennon was a Wizard. ~ Yoko Ono

The iron rail proved a magicians' road. It virtually reduced England to a sixth of its size. It brought the country nearer to the town and the town to the country ... It energized punctuality, discipline, and attention; and proved a moral teacher by the influence of example. ~ Samuel Smiles

Josh was ordinary. But ordinary teens did not find themselves in the middle of a battle between two incredibly ancient magicians. ~ Michael Scott

Back so soon?" he asked. "Too bad. I was just about to organize a search for your dead body. What happened when you knocked on the southerner magician's door to sacrifice yourself? Did they kick you out, thinking you too half-witted to waste their time on? ~ Maria V. Snyder

That's our cue to depart."
"They know something " I pointed out.
"I know something too. I know we're going to attract a lot of unwanted attention if they keep screaming. And then we have to make up some ridiculous explanation about how we heard screaming through the vents in our rooms and we followed the sound back to the basement and we found these girls lying on the ground and pretending to be tied up by invisible rope because they're practicing for the regional mime championships."
I blinked at her. "Is that explanation more or less believable than we woke up because two girls who are actually evil magicians tripped a magical alarm wired to a door in the basement we aren't supposed to know about "
Scout paused for a minute then nodded. "Point made. ~ Chloe Neill

Since love is a magic, Valentine's Day is the day of magicians! Whoever loves creates a magic; whoever is loved, a magic is created! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Actors and magicians are both performers, and they represent things that are not necessarily who they are. ~ Steve Carell

An illusion has three stages.
"First there is the setup, in which the nature of what might be attempted at is hinted at, or suggested, or explained. The apparatus is seen. volunteers from the audience sometimes participate in preparation. As the trick is being setup, the magician will make use of every possible use of misdirection.
"The performance is where the magician's lifetime of practice, and his innate skill as a performer, cojoin to produce the magical display.
"The third stage is sometimes called the effect, or the prestige, and this is the product of magic. If a rabbit is pulled from a hat, the rabbit, which apparently did not exist before the trick was performed, can be said to be the prestige of that trick. ~ Christopher Priest

Beautiful, long, loose hair was a rarity, an indication of a woman's position, her status, the sign of a free woman, a woman who belonged to herself. The sign of an unusual woman – because "normal" maidens wore their hair in plaits, "normal" married women hid theirs beneath a caul or a coif. Women of high birth, including queens, curled their hair and styled it. Warriors cut it short. Only druids and magicians – and whores – wore their hair naturally so as to emphasise their independence and freedom. ~ Andrzej Sapkowski

It was a wonderful experience. She mistrusted his very slumbers
and she seemed to think I could tell her why! Thus a poor mortal seduced by the charm of an apparition might have tried to wring from another ghost the tremendous secret of the claim the other world holds over a disembodied soul astray amongst the passions of this earth. The very ground on which I stood seemed to melt under my feet. And it was so simple too; but if the spirits evoked by our fears and our unrest have ever to vouch for each other's constancy before the forlorn magicians that we are, then I
I alone of us dwellers in the flesh
have shuddered in the hopeless chill of such a task. ~ Joseph Conrad

Klara has always known she's meant to be a bridge: between reality and illusion, the present and the past, this world and the next. She just has to figure out how. ~ Chloe Benjamin

What could you teach me?" Jamie asked, a dimple flashing in his right cheek next to his earring. "Do I need to learn a secret magician handshake? Do I need to learn to do finger wands?"

Gerald burst out laughing. "I - " he said, and seemed somewhat at a loss. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Like a finger gun, but only magicians get to do it," Jamie explained, grinning and shifting his schoolbag on one shoulder. He swished one finger in a dramatic circle, making a swooshing sound to accompany the gesture.

"We don't use wands," said Gerald.

"Don't think that wasn't a crushing blow for me. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

The pain is bad magicians ripping off good ones, doing magic badly, and making a mockery of the art. ~ Ricky Jay

Magicians and Mentalist predict the future because they create it. ~ Amit Kalantri

Egypt is the First Nome. New York is the twenty-first. What's the last one, the Three-hundred-and-sixtieth?" "That would be Antarctica," Zia said. "A punishment assignment. Nothing there but a couple of cold magicians and some magic penguins." "Magic penguins?" "Don't ask. ~ Rick Riordan

Magic is the stunning art of surprising your audience, so that nothing else surprises them. ~ Amit Kalantri

If we do any deed that is unconditionally good, it gives the Dark Magicians the right to do an evil deed. ~ Sergei Lukyanenko

A multiverse hurtling toward an inevitable heat death 100 trillion years in the future. An alien race of religious fanatics bent on absorbing all sentient life. Another alien race fighting back. A world of magicians living in secret. And himself, a contractor, a human Vorid that could absorb his enemies and grow stronger. All in less than 24 hours. And here he was, relaxing on his roof. Maybe video games really did desensitize you to this stuff. Except if he died, he wasn't going to pop back to life. ~ Andrew Ball

Uncle Andrew, you see, was working with things he did not really understand; most magicians are. ~ C.S. Lewis

Wizards? Do you mean they do things a different way?"
"No, just the way we do,"Merlin replied.With a flick of his finger he lit the soggy heap of kindling that Arthur had gathered ( ... ) A blaze leapt up on the instant. Merlin then opened his hands and produced some food out of thin air. ~ Deepak Chopra

In a way, we are magicians. We are alchemists, sorcerers and wizards. We are a very strange bunch. But there is great fun in being a wizard. ~ Billy Joel

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. ~ Dave Attell

In the meantime, how about us doing some more sister things together?"
Alys snorted. "Like what?"
Oh, I don't know. Slay a few monsters, outwit a few magicians, drain a few Chaotic Zones, negotiate a few treaties ... "
And after lunch?"
Janie returned the wry grin sweetly. "I'll let you know."
The hero and the sorceress walked back up the path arm in arm. ~ L.J.Smith

Her people, the Half-Lights, were the by-blows of the full-blood Magicians and humans. As such, they were outcasts from both kingdoms. Their magic was too unpredictable for the magicians, and too magic - period - for the humans. ~ Susan Scott

Part of the job of adults was to set limits. But the last rule, the unspoken rule of any story or journey, is that all limits are suspect. All warnings show only the point where the last story stopped, the boundary past which the map is unmapped. The Kingdom of Here There Be Dragons is the province of explorers, magicians, and kids. ~ Bob Proehl

Every magician knows there is no such thing as magic. They are masters of making things possible out of a situation that seems impossible. The key to getting what you want in life is to know that the only reason why something is, is because it was made possible. It can only be if it is possible for it to be. Make it possible and let it be. ~ Timothy Simpson

It is the magician's bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. ~ C.S. Lewis

Divinity is accident of nature, magic is the work of an art. ~ Amit Kalantri

Doctor Ambrosius smiled slightly. "You and all the others here, are-or rather, one day will be-magicians."
Spirit broke into a disbelieving laugh.
"Right," she said, starting to stand up. Mean, she could deal with; crazy was something else. "Thank you, Professor Dumbledore. I hope the train hasn't left yet, because- ~ Mercedes Lackey

Some magicians are rich, some are famous, some are stupidly good-looking.'
Jamie gave Nick a rather complicated look.
Nick raised an eyebrow. 'Some of us manage to be stupidly good-looking on our own. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

A magician must always value his magic effects more than himself, because after few years audience may not remember his name but they will remember his magic effect. ~ Amit Kalantri

Fiction writers, magicians, politicians and priests are the only people rewarded for entertaining us with their lies ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

Some of the best ideas I've gotten for my act have come from comedians and not magicians. ~ Andrew Mayne

There are spaces between the events we see where things get past us. Magicians know this too, with their sleight of hand tricks. If you can find the rhythm of those spaces, the openings in time, you can hide whole worlds inside them. ~ Kenneth Calhoun

Then Mr. Norrell roused himself and took down five or six books in a great hurry and opened them up - presumably searching out those passages which were full of advice for magicians who wished to awaken dead young ladies. ~ Susanna Clarke

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. ~ Jon Turteltaub

Most magicians are afraid of magic. ~ Max Maven

One of the finest magicians you can see is David Oliver. ~ Barry Nolan

I am the magician's girl who does not flinch. ~ Sylvia Plath

To obfuscate the reconstruction of the effect - when a magician is fooled by another magician doing magic. In my career that's not been the major passion, but it's been the passion of a number of my mentors. The crowning achievement for them would be to create magic good enough to fool other magicians. ~ Ricky Jay

Our proper mode in situations where demand was high and supply low was to elbow, jostle, crowd, and hustle, and, if all that failed, to bribe, flatter, exaggerate, and lie. I was uncertain whether these traits were genetic, deeply cultural, or simply a rapid evolutionary development. We had been forced to adapt to ten years of living in a bubble economy pumped up purely by American imports; three decades of on-again, off-again war, including the sawing in half of the country in '54 by foreign magicians and the brief Japanese interregnum of World War II; and the previous century of avuncular French molestation. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

All art that is not mere storytelling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which medieval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy; for it entangles, in complex colours and forms, a part of the Divine Essence. ~ William Butler Yeats

Twelve magicians and two carnies have been shot dead doing the bullet catch. That's cool enough, but every night when we close our show with that trick and the loaded gun gets pointed in my face, it goes so far beyond cool. All I can think is 12 magicians, two carnies. ~ Penn Jillette

An elephant fell off a cliff, a copper cliff, which practically broke my heart. Elephants and gravity, not a great mix. But you know what? The other elephants immediately stopped and went down and found what was left of it and stood around it in a ring. I couldn't see what they did, but when they were done - it took a day - the one that fell was all back together and up and running again. They resurrected him, I've never seen anything like it. Elephants, they know some shit. I don't know why we rule them, they should rule us. ~ Lev Grossman

Now sir, said the bulldog in his business-like way. 'Are you a animal, vegetable, or mineral?'
- The Magician's Nephew ~ C.S. Lewis

I was always interested in enchantment and magicians and still am. ~ Christopher Lee

I asked Mr. Thurston to tell me the secret of his success... Thurston had a genuine interest in people. He told me that many magicians would look at the audience and say to themselves, "Well, there is a bunch of suckers out there, a bunch of hicks; I'll fool them alright." But Thurston's method was totally different. He told me that every time he went on stage he said to himself: "I am grateful because these people come to see me. They make it possible for me to make my living in a very agreeable way. I'm going to give them the very best I possibly can." p58 ~ Dale Carnegie

Unfortunately most magicians are immune to their own magic. We see behind the veil, we live inside the nuts and bolts, the element of surprise is lost on us. But we can help each other. ~ Menna Van Praag

Poets, Writers . . . know that we are the enchanting magicians that nourishes the seeds of dreams and thoughts . . . it is our words that entice the hearts and minds of others to believe there is something grand about the possibilities that life has to offer and our words tease it forth into action . . . for you are the Poet, the Writer to whom the Gift of Words has been entrusted . . . wsp ~ William S. Peters, Sr.

A great piece of music make people to close their eyes but a great magic effect make their eyes wide open. ~ Amit Kalantri

An Enforcer's style is to destroy all magicians in sight and lap up their essence like a starved cur. ~ Lita Burke

I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasure of gold and gems as so many bricks
and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of
fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of,
magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the
illuminated one as flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of
daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs
as but traces left by the four seasons. ~ Gautama Buddha

Dear Q,

Hell of a thing getting you out of that dungeon. Richard showed up, finally, for which I suppose we should be grateful, though G-d knows he doesn't make it easy.

We wanted to stay, Q, but it was hard, and getting harder every day. The centaurs said it wasn't working. But if you're reading this then you woke up after all. I'm sorry about everything. I know you are too. I know I said I didn't need a family to become who I was supposed to be, but it turned out that I did. And it was you.

We'll meet again.

-E ~ Lev Grossman

Magic is not just for the entertainment, but to inspire people to be creative enough with their lives. ~ Amit Kalantri

I address you all tonight for who you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers. ~ Brian Selznick

A great magician is as divine as God and his stage is as majestic as the paradise. ~ Amit Kalantri

I only wish he had not married," said Mr. Norell fretfully. "Magicians have no business marrying. ~ Susanna Clarke

I was told once by some country people that a magician should never tell his dreams because the telling will make them come true. But I say that is great nonsense. ~ Susanna Clarke

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. ~ Naomi Novik

Tonight Oskar and his daughter are going to sleep in an abandoned wooden boat on the beach. He will try to make this seem normal. Every day he has to try to make what happens to them appear nothing out of the ordinary. As if he still has all the magician's tricks of a father. As if he still has the power to keep her from harm. ~ Glenn Haybittle

I am a wizard," he muttered. "Magicians do parlor tricks. ~ Priya Ardis

As we have seen, Pharaoh's magicians were able to
deceive everyone, apart from Musa (as) and those who
believed in him. However, his evidence broke the spell, or
"swallowed up what they had forged," as the verse puts it:
We revealed to Musa: "Throw down your staff." And it
immediately swallowed up what they had forged. So
the Truth took place and what they did was shown to
be false. (Surat al-A'raf, 117-8) ~ Harun Yahya

What I say is misdirection, what you see is an illusion and what results is magic. ~ Amit Kalantri

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. ~ Harry Houdini

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. ~ Ricky Jay

One of the things I really dislike about Christians is their hypocrisy; they criticize magicians but portray Jesus as Harry Potter. ~ Robin Sacredfire

Sometimes I dream of revolution, a bloody coup d'etat by the second rank - troupes of actors slaughtered by their understudies, magicians sawn in half by indefatigably smiling glamour girls, cricket teams wiped out by marauding bands of twelfth men - I dream of champions chopped down by rabbit-punching sparring partners while eternal bridesmaids turn and rape the bridegrooms over the sausage rolls and parliamentary private secretaries plant bombs in the Minister's Humber - comedians die on provincial stages, robbed of their feeds by mutely triumphant stooges - - and - march - - an army of assistants and deputies, the seconds-in-command, the runners-up, the right-handmen - storming the palace gates wherein the second son has already mounted the throne having committed regicide with a croquet-mallet - stand-ins ~ Tom Stoppard

it strikes me that the writers most deeply concerned with the state of literary fiction and its biases against women could do a lot worse than trying to coin some terms of their own: to name the archetypes they wish to invert or criticise and thereby open up the discussion. If authors can be thought of as magicians in any sense, then the root of our power has always rested with words: choosing them, arranging them and – most powerfully – inventing them. Sexism won't go away overnight, and nor will literary bias. But until then, if we're determined to invest ourselves in bringing about those changes, it only makes sense to arm ourselves with a language that we, and not our enemies, have chosen.

May 14, 2011 Blog post ~ Foz Meadows

I know magicians and I know magic and I say this: all magicians lie and this one more than most. ~ Susanna Clarke

A great magician is not more magical than other magicians; he is just more magical in his presentation. ~ Amit Kalantri

Magick comes in many forms, and there are many covert master magicians who are so covert that they don't even know they are magicians. ~ Christopher Penczak

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. ~ Rick Riordan

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! ~ Theodore Von Karman

He looked like a child who had been slightly misdelivered, with some subpar forceps handling by the attending. ~ Lev Grossman

The Vatican is like a huge kind of magician's club. The more you look into it the more awful it becomes. And they're laughing at us. That's when I get angry. ~ Peter Mullan

Writers and magicians do essentially the same thing, they create worlds with words and will. ~ James L. Wilber

Many scientific disciplines begin by not observing any sort of vital spark or consciousness in material events and proceed to deny that these things exist in living things, including themselves. Because consciousness does not fit into their mechanistic schemes they declare it illusory. Magicians make exactly the reverse argument. Observing consciousness in themselves and animals, they are magnanimous enough to extend it to all things to some degree - trees, amulets, planetary bodies, and all. This is a far more respectful and generous attitude than that of religions, most of whom won't even give animals a soul. ~ Peter J. Carroll

Dreams are great magicians. ~ Lucian Of Samosata

I learned a lot that night. For example, that part of being the magician's assistant means coming face-to-face with illusion. That invisibility is really just knotting your body in a certain way and letting the black curtain fall over you. That people don't vanish into thin air; that when you can't find someone, it's because you've been misdirected to look elsewhere. ~ Jodi Picoult

Magicians lose the opportunity to experience a sense of wonder. ~ David Copperfield

Magicians from the nineteenth century threw cards distances, but I think I'm the first one who made a thing about using them as weapons. ~ Ricky Jay

Foolishness, sir. How can old wounds heal while maggots linger so richly? Or a peace hold for ever built on slaughter and a magician's trickery? ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

What I really devoured ... was the truculence of my hosts' language: the syntax may have been brutally sloppy, but it was oh so warm in its juvenile authenticity. I feasted on their words, yes, the words flowing at that get-together of country brothers, the sort of words that, at times, delight one much more than the pleasures of the flesh. Words: repositories for singular realities which they transform into moments in an anthology, magicians that change the face of reality by adorning it with the right to become memorable, to be placed in a library of memories. Life exists only by virtue of the osmosis of words and facts, where the former encase the latter in ceremonial dress. ~ Muriel Barbery

Give royal treatment to your original magic effects, because one of the effects might make you the king of magic. ~ Amit Kalantri

First rate magician perform first rate magic effects, second rate magician performs third rate magic effects. ~ Amit Kalantri

But devils are subservient to certain influences of the stars, because magicians observe the course of certain stars in order to evoke the devils. ~ Heinrich Kramer

A bad magician never gets the good props. ~ Amit Kalantri

I don't feel like a trauma victim. I feel like a house after a fire. And sometimes I fell like someone who died but stayed in his body. And sometimes I feel like someone else died, like someone else sacrificed everything, so that I can have a normal life.
With wings.
And a tail.
And vampires.
And magicians.
And a boy in my arms, instead of a girl.
And a happy ending - even if it isn't the ending I ever would have dreamt for myself, or hoped for.
A chance. ~ Rainbow Rowell

I think you're magicians because you're unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength. "Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But ~ Lev Grossman

Like other magicians, Obama has chosen his distractions well. The insurance industry is currently his favorite distraction as scapegoats, after he has tried to demonize doctors without much success ... Obama even gets away with saying things like having a system to 'keep insurance companies honest' - and many people may not see the painful irony in politicians trying to keep other people honest. ~ Thomas Sowell

To clever plans,' said Kell, toasting his brother. 'And dashing princes.'
'To masked magicians,' said Rhy, swiping the wine.
'To mad ideas.'
'To the Essen Tasch.'
'Wouldn't it be amazing,' murmured Rhy later, when the bottle was empty, 'if we got away with it? ~ V.E Schwab

Magicians and scientists are, on the face of it, poles apart. Certainly, a group of people who often dress strangely, live in a world of their own, speak a specialized language and frequently make statements that appear to be in flagrant breach of common sense have nothing in common with a group of people who often dress strangely, speak a specialized language, live in ... er ... ~ Terry Pratchett

As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. ~ Ambrose Bierce

A fortuneteller at a magicians' convention in Atlantic City once told him that when he fell in love it would be forever, and he laughed at the notion, but now he sees that reading was completely on target. ~ Alice Hoffman

All Carolina folk are crazy for mayonnaise, mayonnaise is as ambrosia to them, the food of their tarheeled gods. Mayonnaise comforts them, causes the vowels to slide more musically along their slow tongues, appeasing their grease-conditioned taste buds while transporting those buds to a place higher than lard could ever hope to fly. Yellow as summer sunlight, soft as young thighs, smooth as a Baptist preacher's rant, falsely innocent as a magician's handkerchief, mayonnaise will cloak a lettuce leaf, some shreds of cabbage, a few hunks of cold potato in the simplest splendor, restyling their dull character, making them lively and attractive again, granting them the capacity to delight the gullet if not the heart. Fried oysters, leftover roast, peanut butter: rare are the rations that fail to become instantly more scintillating from contact with this inanimate seductress, this goopy glory-monger, this alchemist in a jar.
The mystery of mayonnaise-and others besides Dickie Goldwire have surely puzzled over this_is how egg yolks, vegetable oil, vinegar (wine's angry brother), salt, sugar (earth's primal grain-energy), lemon juice, water, and, naturally, a pinch of the ol' calcium disodium EDTA could be combined in such a way as to produce a condiment so versatile, satisfying, and outright majestic that mustard, ketchup, and their ilk must bow down before it (though, a at two bucks a jar, mayonnaise certainly doesn't put on airs)or else slink away in disgrace. Who but the ~ Tom Robbins

People and land, they're the same, his father used to say. Neglect one and the other suffers eventually. ~ Trudi Canavan

Chaston wrote that a great many fairies harboured a vague sense of having been treated badly by the English. Though it was a mystery to Chaston - as it is to me - why they should have thought so. In the houses of the great English magicians fairies were the first among the servants and sat in the best places after the magician and his lady. ~ Susanna Clarke

Being the executive producer of a film is not that difficult. It just means that you have some power. There's not a huge amount of skill involved, I don't know how much I'm giving away here. I feel like that guy on Fox, giving away the magicians' tricks. It's not rocket science, being an executive producer of a film. ~ Craig Ferguson

A writer's brain is like a magician's hat. If you're going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first ~ Louis L'Amour