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

As a kid, I always was obsessed with Houdini.

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

I believe that fear of life brings a greater fear of death.

My only fear is the unknown.

I just believe that the feeling of wonder is amazing. I am pushing myself as far as I can humanly push myself... I can only hope for the best and expect the worse.

We are all capable of infinitely more than we believe.

I have not had time to reflect on my own truths in many years.

As a kid I used to hold my breath longer than anybody else, and then I heard stories about people accidently underwater for 45 minutes - how do you recover from that? It's not a miracle. Something allows us to survive.

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

But as they say about sharks, it's not the ones you see that you have to worry about, it's the ones you don't see.

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 hope people remember me as a guy who brought magic to the people. You know, pushed the boundaries of wonder.

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.

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.

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 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 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 - It's practice, it's training and experimenting, while pushing through the pain to be the best that I can be.

I think that when Evel Knievel crashed over the fountain at Caesar's, it kind of gave you a credibility and then anticipation for everything he did.

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

I was obsessed with the idea of fasting and isolation.

I'd go to Coney Island to hang out, and I saw a magician doing a rope trick on the boardwalk. I was fascinated. I guess that's how it started.

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.

Magic's an art where you use slight of hand or illusion to create wonder. And I was just intrigued with that idea.

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.

My mother was a teacher, and when she wanted to show me art and literature and science, she'd take me to museums, parks and free exhibitions.

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.

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.

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

The world is... the natural setting of, and field for, all my thoughts and all my explicit perceptions. Truth does not inhabit only the inner man, or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself.

Sure I think it is healthy to speak the truth, and be who you are, and be proud of that.

The Republicans claim they are for strengthening Pell grants when the truth is that over the last four years, their legislation has done the exact opposite.

It's a lot easier to tell the truth usually.

A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.

A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments.

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.

Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.

There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.

Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.

Christians must be Jews. The truth of what we believe depends on the truth of Judaism, depends on the first covenant.

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.

The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us.

There is a contest old as Eden, which still goes on - the conflict between right and wrong, between error and truth. In this conflict every human being has a part.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.

The truth is, we haven't really figured out yet how artists are going to thrive in modern mass societies. We're all experiments.

This nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the principle - among others - that honest men may honestly disagree; that if they all say what they think, a majority of the people will be able to distinguish truth from error.

Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there.