The Prestige
The Prestige

Cutter: Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes

the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part

we call "The Prestige"."

The Prestige
The Prestige

[last lines]
Cutter: Now you're looking for the secret. But you won't find it because of course, you're not really looking. You don't really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.

The Prestige
The Prestige

[first lines]
Alfred Borden: Are you watching closely?

The Prestige
The Prestige

Officer: Do you have anything to say?
Alfred Borden: Abracadabra.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Alfred Borden: The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything.

The Prestige
The Prestige

[In reference to a bird from a trick]
Alfred Borden: See? He's fine!
Boy: But where's his brother?

The Prestige
The Prestige

Alfred Borden: You went half way around the world, you spent a fortune, you did terrible things - really terrible things, Robert, and all for nothing.
Robert Angier: For nothing?
Alfred Borden: Yeah
Robert Angier: You never understood why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's

miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you... then you got to see something really special. You really don't know? It was... it was the look on their faces...

The Prestige
The Prestige

Alfred Borden: So... we go alone now. Both of us. Only I don't have as far to go as you. Go. You were right, I should have left him to his damn trick. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for a lot of things. I'm sorry about Sarah. I didn't mean to hurt her... I didn't. You go and live your life in full now, all right? You live for both of us.
Fallon: Goodbye.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Nikola Tesla: You're familiar with the phrase "man's reach exceeds his grasp"? It's a lie: man's grasp exceeds his nerve.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Cutter: Take a minute to consider your achievement. I once told you about a sailor who drowned.
Robert Angier: Yes, he said it was like going home.
Cutter: I lied. He said it was agony.

The Prestige
The Prestige

[after showing a little boy how to do a coin trick]
Alfred Borden: Never show anyone. They'll beg you and they'll flatter you for the secret, but as soon as you give it up... you'll be nothing to them.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Nikola Tesla: Mr. Angier, have you considered the cost of such a machine?
Robert Angier: Price is not an object.
Nikola Tesla: Perhaps not, but have you considered the *cost*?
Robert Angier: I'm not sure I follow.
Nikola Tesla: Go home. Forget this thing. I can recognize an obsession,

no good will come of it.
Robert Angier: Why, haven't good come of your obsessions?
Nikola Tesla: Well, at first. But I followed them too long. I'm their slave... and one day they'll choose to destroy me.
Robert Angier: If you understand an obsession, then you know you won't change my mind.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Alfred Borden: Everything's going to be alright, because I love you very much.
Sarah: Say it again.
Alfred Borden: I love you.
Sarah: Not today.
Alfred Borden: What do you mean?
Sarah: Well some days it's not true. Maybe today you're more in love with magic. I

like being able to tell the difference, it makes the days it is true mean something.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Sarah: Alfred, I can't live like this!
Alfred Borden: Well, what do you want from me?
Sarah: I want... I want you to be honest with me. No tricks, no lies, no secrets.
[pause]
Sarah: Do you... do you love me?
Alfred Borden: Not today. No.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Robert Angier: No one cares about the man in the box, the man who disappears.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Alfred Borden: I love you.
Sarah: You mean it today.
Alfred Borden: Of course.
Sarah: It just makes it so much harder when you don't.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Nikola Tesla: Nothing is impossible, Mr. Angier. What you want is simply expensive.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Olivia Wenscombe: You married her. You had a child with her.
Alfred Borden: Yes. Part of me did. But the other part... the other part didn't. The part that found you, the part that's sitting here right now.
Olivia Wenscombe: You could be in some other cafe saying the same thing about me right now. It's inhuman to be so cold.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Alfred Borden: We both had half of a full life, which was somehow enough for us. But not for them.

The Prestige
The Prestige

Nikola Tesla: Society tolerates only one change at a time.