The skills that we have are the actual magic skills - not the performing skills. We have to separate those. But the actual skills that make the tricks work, we don't get to use again.

I'm a hardcore libertarian - I want everything legal - but I also believe that you have the right to free association.

I've never had a drink of alcohol or any drug in my life.

Before you can read, you know the difference between a story and reality. And, of course, by the time you're old enough to do any real damage with an Uzi, you've learned that difference.

We knew that we were kind of odd and creeps, and we wanted to do odd, creepy stuff for people who wanted to see that.

I'm a big fan of huge populations of people, so you'd think with 300 million people in the country, you don't even have to please 1% to be phenomenally successful.

Janet Reno, during her confirmation hearings, said she would come down harder on porno, and lately she's talked about how violence on television has an effect on violence in the real world.

We aren't people who believe that just because we're performers our opinions on everything need to be known.

Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around. If you're looking for violent rape imagery, the Bible's right there in your hotel room. If you just want to look up ways to screw people up, there it is, and you're justified because God told you to.

Teller and I worked Renaissance Festivals and street performing - actually more real, no kidding around, Philadelphia street performing than we did Renaissance Festivals.

The skills that we have are the actual magic skills - not the performing skills. We have to separate those. But the actual skills that make the tricks work, we don't get to use again.

It wasn't success, because Teller and I, by the time Asparagus Valley got together - within a year, we had achieved all our goals. I mean, our goal was to earn our living doing exactly what we wanted. Which is many people's goal.

But it's much more exciting to make Die Hard. One of the reasons that I think that movie is so successful is it deals with those very important blue-collar relationship themes. But it's more visually beautiful to show things blowing up. It just gives you more on the screen.

When you're watching Psycho, there' s that moment when you have a visceral reaction to watching someone being stabbed. And then you have the intellectual revelation that you're not, and that's where the celebration comes in.

Whereas you have someone like Houdini, who works really, really hard to get really, really famous, and then has actual intellectual ideas that he puts into the culture that stay there.

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.

In my private life, I'm not around any drugs or alcohol.

The medium is not the message - the message is the message.

The fact is that violence gives you a rush.

The First Amendment says nothing about your getting paid for saying anything. It just says you can say it. I don't believe that if a corporation pulls all the money out of you or a network pulls their money away or you get fired, you're being censored.

One of the things that Teller and I are obsessed with, one of the reasons that we're in magic, is the difference between fantasy and reality.

If I go out to dinner with you and you order wine, I leave. I won't be around drugs and alcohol at all.

'Celebrity Apprentice' has more integrity and is the most straightforward show I've ever seen.

'Moxie' is a name that was created by an American for the first national soft drink and then went on to mean chutzpah, and that's nice.

'Psycho' is fascinating philosophically, because the point of 'Psycho' is that everything that's bad happens because of love.

'Zolten' is a common Hungarian name, it's my wife's maiden name and most importantly, it's the name of Dracula's dog.

A joke is a way to say, 'I'm going to do something funny now. If I don't get a laugh at the end, I'm a failure.'

A lot of people, to attack an outspoken atheist, one of the things they'll do is say, 'You are as bad as the fundamentalist Christians.' And my answer is always, 'I hope so.'

A two-party system is way too good for those two parties.

All David Blaine is is a good-looking magician.

As much as I disagreed with every second of 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' the fact that it is out made me jump for joy.

Asking someone else to do something immoral is immoral.

Bacon is so good by itself that to put it in any other food is an admission of failure. You're basically saying, 'I can't make this other food taste good, so I'll throw in bacon.'

Barack Obama is way smarter than Bush - so way, way smarter than me. Obama is way more charismatic than me.

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don't need religion.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Bob Barr is not crazy enough for my taste.

Bob Saget is the dirtiest comic who's ever lived. Nobody touches him.

Building a professional relationship on respect as opposed to affection is a very good idea. Running your art projects the way you'd run a dry-cleaning business is also a really good idea. You shouldn't go into work like you're going on a date, like you're hanging out with friends.

Charities are really good. To a certain extent, the ones you pick are arbitrary.

Comedy is taken care of by a free market.

Computers absolutely changed my life. Before I had a computer, I had never written one thing. Not one thing. I'm a very bad speller and I was embarrassed by that. When I would type, the little mistakes would make me nutty, and I would never edit anything.

Counterintuitive action makes a fellow feel smart.

Counterintuitive actions prove we can trust real knowledge and do the opposite of what we feel makes sense.

Direct confrontation, direct conversation is real respect. And it's amazing how many people get that.

Don't waste too much time wishing, hoping, and being envious; it'll make you bugnutty.

Even if I disagree with Obama on many, many things, he is certainly qualified to be president. He is certainly competent to be president.

Every day, TV, newspapers, and the Internet bombard us with a message that we're destroying the earth. Ice caps are melting, rivers are dying, polar bears are drowning, and trees are doing something.

Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around.