The Prestige Quotes

Nikola Tesla: I apologize for leaving without saying goodbye, but I seem to have outstayed my welcome in Colorado. The truly extraordinary is not permitted in science and industry. Perhaps you'll find more luck in your field, where people are happy to be mystified. You will find what you are looking for in this box. Alley has written you a thorough set of instructions. I add only

one suggestion on using the machine: destroy it. Drop it to the bottom of the deepest ocean. Such a thing will bring you only misery.

[last lines]
Cutter: Every magic trick consists of three parts, or acts. The first part is called the pledge, the magician shows you something ordinary. The second act is called the turn, the magician takes the ordinary something and makes it into something extraordinary. But you wouldn't clap yet, because making something disappear isn't enough. You have to bring it BACK.

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.

[Borden shoots Angier in the waist, picking up the red rubber ball, when the two reveal their prestige to one another]
Robert Angier: A brother... a twin. You were Fallon... the whole time?
Alfred Borden: No. We were both Fallon. And we were both Borden.
Robert Angier: [panting] Were you - were you the one who went into the

box or the one who came back out?
Alfred Borden: We took turns. The trick is where we would swap.
[we see the flashback of both twins performing The Transported Man]
Robert Angier: [breathing heavily] Cutter knew. Cutter knew. But I told him it was too simple, too easy.
Alfred Borden: No... simple, maybe, but not easy.

There's nothing easy about two men sharing one life.
[we see the flashback showing one of the twins cutting the other twins' fingers off]
Robert Angier: Wh-What about Olivia? And your wife?
Alfred Borden: We each loved one of them.
[we see the flashback of both lovers]
Alfred Borden: I loved Sarah. He loved

Olivia. We each had half a full life, really, which was enough for us. Just... but not for them. You see, sacrifice, Robert - that's the price of a good trick. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?
Robert Angier: [labored breathing] I've - I've made sacrifices.
[wheezing]
Robert Angier: Yes.
Alfred

Borden: It takes nothing to steal another man's work.
Robert Angier: It takes everything.
[we see the flashback of Angier killing the clone of himself while doing The Real Transported Man trick]
Robert Angier: It took courage... it took courage to climb into that machine every night... not knowing... if I'd be the man in the box... or

the prestige. Do you want - want to see. What it cost me? Y-you didn't see where you are, did you? Look. Look
Alfred Borden: Look here... you went halfway 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... and 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 very special. You really don't know? It was... it was the look on their faces.
[Angier wheezes

and exhales, collapsing dead, and Borden walks out of the theatre alone]

Alfred Borden: He's progressive, he's predictable, he's boring. I mean, Milton's got success, whatever that means, and now he's scared, he won't take any risks at all. I mean, he's squandering the goodwill of the audience with these tired, second-rate tricks...
Robert Angier: They're all favorites, please...
Alfred Borden: Favorites?

Come on, give me something fresh, he wont even try a bloody bullet catch!
Cutter: A bullet catch is suicide, all it takes is some smart-ass volunteer to put a button in the barrel...
Alfred Borden: Fine, use a plant!
Robert Angier: You can't use plants for every trick!
Julia McCullough: There'll be no

seats left for the punters!
[laughs]
Alfred Borden: Fine, no bullet catch, whatever, but the point is... a real magician tries to invent something new, that other magicians are gonna scratch their heads over, you know?
Cutter: Right, then you sell it to him for a small fortune?
Alfred Borden: All right...

Cutter: I suppose you have such a trick?
Alfred Borden: Actually, I do.