Ricky Jay Quotes
Unlike other Jewish families, we didn't go out for Chinese food on Sundays, but we spent our time in a world of baking powder biscuits and the best shrimp cocktails that ever were.
Ricky Jay
Quotes to Explore
I certainly was performing before my writing was published, because I was performing when I was very young. And the thing is I'm very comfortable on stage, so a large portion of my act did come from ad-libs.
Ricky Jay
I love amazing people. I love dazzling them. That's why I think performing magic is one of the greatest things a person can do.
Ricky Jay
If it sounds too good to be true, it always is.
Ricky Jay
In the winters, I enrolled in the hotel management program at Cornell University. I naively thought that I knew something about sleight-of-hand, entertainment and food, and that would be all I needed.
Ricky Jay
Once you get into the era of the printed book, it gets a little easier. After years and years, you make a serious survey of that literature, and then you make it more specific depending on what kind of case appears. I never set out to collect material on cheating at bowling, but I found out that after 20 years, I had a lot of material on cheating at bowling.
Ricky Jay
I like being fooled. When I watch someone who does sleight-of-hand and fools me, it's a great feeling.
Ricky Jay
That's one of the ways language evolved, by some very obscure form becoming common usage. And I must say that I'm very intrigued by use of language and slang, and criminal underground terms.
Ricky Jay
It probably is harder to fool people when they know they're going to be fooled.
Ricky Jay
I started doing radio pieces with no clear, preconceived idea, except that I have a tendency to be theatrical.
Ricky Jay
One of the reasons I don't like to use the word "tricks" , I do think of them as theatrical pieces, and as pretentious as that might sound, there's a real reason for it. It's not the idea of tricking you; it's the idea of taking you along on this particular journey the way you would in any other theatrical situation. But, hopefully, you're going to be fooled at the end.
Ricky Jay
Dai Vernon, the greatest sleight of hand figure in the history of the art, rarely performed. But he invented magic and had an enormous influence on the whole range of sleight of hand. And so often the magic he was doing was to fool other magicians.
Ricky Jay
I grew up like Athena — covered with playing cards instead of armor — and, at the age of seven, materialized on a TV show, doing magic.
Ricky Jay
Sitting with a deck of cards in your hand all day is an obsession. Visiting print shops and bookstores and libraries is an obsession. And writing about this is an obsession. I think, in general, most collectors are obsessed. I think the only form of a rationalized greed is when you're collecting something you are supposedly serious about.
Ricky Jay
Every acting gig isn't the same, every writing job isn't the same, every live performance isn't the same - the challenge is the level of difficulty or ease, and that may vary.
Ricky Jay
The book says we may be through with the past but the past ain't through with us.
Ricky Jay
I suppose that if I could only do one thing, a solid card effect would be pretty high on the list. That's the root of it all, sleight-of-hand. It's certainly the thing I feel most comfortable with.
Ricky Jay
For me, the most exciting thing is to create good magic that's entertaining for an audience, and it would be lovely if a magician was fooled as well.
Ricky Jay
I always read what I write out loud, and I did that long before any radio thing. My editor finds that unusual.
Ricky Jay