No performer should attempt to bite off red-hot iron unless he has a good set of teeth.

In all feats of fire-eating it should be noted that the head is thrown well back, so that the flame may pass out of the open mouth instead of up into the roof, as it would if the head were held naturally.

Only one man ever betrayed my confidence, and that only in a minor matter.

The eating of burning brimstone is an entirely fake performance.

But then, so far as I know, I am the only performer who ever pledged his assistants to secrecy, honor and allegiance under a notarial oath.

I make the most money, I think, in Russia and Paris, for the people of those countries are so willing to be amused, so eager to see something new and out of the ordinary.

My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion, and many things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business.

Fire has always been and, seemingly, will always remain, the most terrible of the elements.

It is still an open question, however, as to what extent exposure really injures a performer.

I think that in a year I may retire. I cannot take my money with me when I die and I wish to enjoy it, with my family, while I live. I should prefer living in Germany to any other country, though I am an American, and am loyal to my country.

No performer should attempt to bite off red-hot iron unless he has a good set of teeth.

Flames from the lips may be produced by holding in the mouth a sponge saturated with the purest gasoline.

How the early priests came into possession of these secrets does not appear, and if there were ever any records of this kind the Church would hardly allow them to become public.

To cause the face to appear in a mass of flame make use of the following: mix together thoroughly petroleum, lard, mutton tallow and quick lime. Distill this over a charcoal fire, and the liquid which results can be burned on the face without harm.

But it must not be thought that I say this out of personal experience: for in the many years that I have been before the public my secret methods have been steadily shielded by the strict integrity of my assistants, most of whom have been with me for years.

Another method of eating burning coals employs small balls of burned cotton in a dish of burning alcohol.

Eating coals of fire has always been one of the sensational feats of the Fire Kings, as it is quite generally known that charcoal burns with an extremely intense heat.

The great day of the Fire-eater - or, should I say, the day of the great Fire-eater - has passed.

A common pickpocket trick is for the operator to carry a shawl or overcoat carelessly over the left arm, and to take a seat on the right side of the person they intend to rob in a streetcar or other vehicle.

I am a great admirer of mystery and magic. Look at this life - all mystery and magic.

It is needless to say that women make the most patient as well as the most dangerous pickpockets.

Pickpockets either work alone or in pairs, or what is called a mob.

The pickpocket is usually very well dressed and of prepossessing appearance.

What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.

A magician is only an actor - an actor pretending to be a magician.

There are still Negro elites. Many of them are obviously much richer, and perhaps a little more integrated into what remains a white power structure. But those old rituals from the social clubs, to the broadly segregated white and black schools, to an obsessive interest in ancestry, all of that does still exist. Look: we are a class-bound society.

I don't blame anybody for using the tax code to their advantage.

I find any sort of acting that doesn't have any humor in it is mind-numbingly boring. 'Serious acting' is the kind of acting that I don't ever respond to.

'Swan Lake' is the most difficult thing to portray for a female ballet dancer; it really requires such specific qualities of articulation, agility, strength, and the arm work is something that takes a lot of training.

I've always told my wife, 'Anytime I have an opportunity to be on something that I would watch even if I wasn't on it, that's when I get really, really giddy.'

I never believed that my service in the U.S. Congress should become a permanent career.

Progress really is possible.

The overriding goal of counterinsurgency is to make friends: You make friends with the people; you isolate the insurgents.

I was living a complete lie. But unfortunately, guilt doesn't make you stop.

I want to put any number of assorted 'ists' - such as relativists, deconstructionists, destructivists, postmodernists, the more maudlin kind of pacifists and feminists - firmly in their place.

I had my first 'Survivor Series' in 1991 and I was fortunate enough to be an instrumental part of the shows I was on.

As a civilian during the Second War, I was exposed to danger in circumstances which removed any distinction between the man in and the man out of uniform.

I do believe in God.

The U.S. has since the end of World War II had an answer - we stand for free peoples and free markets, we are willing to support and defend them - we will sustain a balance of power that favors freedom.

I'm not personally obsessed with death. At a certain age, the light that you live in is inhabited by the shades - it 'tis.

I started playing badminton when I was probably of eight years and ever since have been playing. I didn't go to university.

In Hollywood the rainbow hits the ground for composers.

I'm very well known in the industry and relatively well known by people who are aficionados and what not, but outside of that - no.

Raw food is the best way to have the cleanest energy. We take so much care about what kind of fuel we put in our car, what kind of oil. We care about that sometimes more than the fuel that we're looking at putting in our bodies. It's cleaner burning fuel.

Did I think it would last 30 years? No, I didn't think it would have those kind of legs.

I suspect that writer's block afflicts mainly people who have some stable and ample source of income outside of writing. So far it hasn't been a problem.

Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than of wisdom acquired.

I told them, you can succeed - it's not likely the first time, maybe 25 per cent, but you CAN succeed. You can also die. By April 16 they had already been to camp III, well ahead of most teams.

Markets work best when there's lots of information available and a historical track record to go on; they excel at predicting things like horse races, election outcomes, and box-office results. But they're bad at predicting things like who will be the next Supreme Court nominee, as that depends on the whim of the president.