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.
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 was obsessed with the idea of fasting and isolation.
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.
Magic's an art where you use slight of hand or illusion to create wonder. And I was just intrigued with that idea.
I hope people remember me as a guy who brought magic to the people. You know, pushed the boundaries of wonder.
I'd like to bring magic back to the place it used to be 100 years ago.
We are all capable of infinitely more than we believe.
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.
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.
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 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.
My only fear is the unknown.
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.
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.
I thought instead of burying myself under dirt, I'd bury myself under water so everybody could see that you're there.
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.
When I was about 19, I shot a tape of me doing magic just to people on the streets, and I would edit together all the reactions and I kept pushing this idea, and then ABC came on board and made my first show.
As a kid, I always was obsessed with Houdini.
