David Copperfield Quotes & Sayings

#1. For my father, being kind was natural ... I have to really work at it. I love competing and winning, conquest - not words you usually associate with kindness.

David Copperfield

#2. Magicians are the people who began to use film as an illusion on stage.

David Copperfield

#3. It's really hard to think of one kind of magic as a favorite. I've been really fortunate in that I've been able to perform such a diverse range of things.

David Copperfield

#4. Marriage is like a formality for me.

David Copperfield

#5. I used to fly around the stage without strings or camera tricks. That took seven years to create.

David Copperfield

#6. I find revealing the secrets of magic quite reprehensible.

David Copperfield

#7. The most important thing is presentation.

David Copperfield

#8. I need a form of escape even when I'm working really hard.

David Copperfield

#9. I discovered Musha Cay and the islands around it in the Exumas.

David Copperfield

#10. I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

David Copperfield

#11. All the lawyers and the business stuff is work, but actually creating stuff isn't work. It's good effort. It's hard work. But, it's not work. It doesn't feel like work because the result is very rewarding.

David Copperfield

#12. You have to learn certain skills to present magic.

David Copperfield

#13. It wasn't just about doing tricks. It's about taking an audience to another place, a special place, so they can really suspend their disbelief. Its about amazing the audience as well as moving them.

David Copperfield

#14. Magic came very easy for me when I was a kid. When I was 8 years old I started doing it, and by the time I was 12, I was already published in magic books.

David Copperfield

#15. What I've tried to do in my stage magic is to take a trick and give it an emotional hook.

David Copperfield

#16. I learned that there were two ways I could live my life: following my dreams or doing something else. Dreams aren't a matter of chance, but a matter of choice. When I dream, I believe I am rehearsing my future.

David Copperfield

#17. I'm really trying hard not to do anything that has been done before. So knowing everything I can about the legacy of magic challenges my team and I to invent new illusions.

David Copperfield

#18. My show is constantly evolving ... new tricks are added, old ones are dropped ... so it stays fresh. But it's the randomly selected participants from the audience that make it fresh and provide some of the best comic relief.

David Copperfield

#19. It is the unspoken ethic of all magicians to not reveal the secrets.

David Copperfield

#20. I was an only child. We were so poor, my parents and I had the same room.

David Copperfield

#21. We all possess the need to dream.

David Copperfield

#22. The audience likes to be taken on new journeys.

David Copperfield

#23. For me to grow, I have to know about the foundation that came before.

David Copperfield

#24. I will now make a scorpion appear in Osama bin Laden's pants

David Copperfield

#25. I discovered something amazing, which has caused a lot of controversy - the fountain of youth. I have to keep it a secret!

David Copperfield

#26. The audiences are what keep me enthusiastic.

David Copperfield

#27. There is a safe spot within every tornado. My job is to find it.

David Copperfield

#28. Magic and new technology have always walked hand in hand - even back in the days of Robert Houdin.

David Copperfield

#29. Let sleeping dogs lie - who wants to rouse 'em?

David Copperfield

#30. The first trick I bought at Macy's was a little wooden board where a quarter would appear and disappear.

David Copperfield

#31. Magic really helped me.

David Copperfield

#32. My uncle's house burned down when I was 6 years old. We got out safely. But ever since, I've had a nightmare of dying in a fire.

David Copperfield

#33. It's okay for me to be gay, but God didn't make me that way.

David Copperfield

#34. I act like I'm 14, if you haven't figured that out yet.

David Copperfield

#35. When you're a guy and meet a girl the first time, you do whatever it takes.

David Copperfield

#36. No, I think marriage is a great thing.

David Copperfield

#37. I really did sneak into Broadway shows, starting when I was 12.

David Copperfield

#38. Dreams are illusions, and we can't let go of them because we would be dead.

David Copperfield

#39. No self-respecting gay guy would have ever made some of the hair and clothing choices I am still trying to live down.

David Copperfield

#40. When people say you can't do it - that it's impossible - never lose hope. Just because they couldn't doesn't mean you can't.

David Copperfield

#41. Never stop listening to your audience.

David Copperfield

#42. Demonic figures and occult themes have disappeared from modern magic.

David Copperfield

#43. But Vegas is really my first home.

David Copperfield

#44. In magic, it takes two or three years for me to create a 5-minute illusion for me to get it to the level I want.

David Copperfield

#45. I'm just waiting for people to start asking me to make the rain disappear.

David Copperfield

#46. Before there can be wonders, there must be wonder.

David Copperfield

#47. Magic is used in espionage, all the time, for clandestine things. I've got a whole library from a gentleman who was hired by the CIA to create magic technology for the use of anti-terrorism.

David Copperfield

#48. Magic is the only profession where it's easy to lie about your talent. If you do a trick and you can learn it very quickly, you can fool somebody into thinking you're a great magician.

David Copperfield

#49. I have always been interested in pushing magic forward.

David Copperfield

#50. To make magic credible on screen is always very difficult. The story is the most important thing. That is what should win. If sacrifices or compromises are made, it's usually for story. Story in magic is very, very important to me. That's what I've really championed through my career.

David Copperfield

#51. Stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will'.

David Copperfield

#52. Magicians lose the opportunity to experience a sense of wonder.

David Copperfield

#53. I brush my teeth with a Sonicare toothbrush before every show.

David Copperfield

#54. But when I go off stage I don't have a deck of cards with me all the time.

David Copperfield

#55. I try to help people realize their dreams by using magic to tell stories that educate, move, and inspire.

David Copperfield

#56. My dreams are my dress rehearsals for my future.

David Copperfield

#57. I am fortunate to have the resources to have many methods to do each of my illusions.

David Copperfield

#58. You can feel better about yourself in a very short period of time depending on the kind of magic that you are doing.

David Copperfield

#59. The key is for the audience never to know, so I have a plan B for every illusion.

David Copperfield

#60. Physical rehab is often very, very hard work.

David Copperfield

#61. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction! She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I dont know what she was
anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted.

David Copperfield

#62. My job is to make people dream. Of course, there's a lot of technical stuff behind the scenes and a lot of hard work behind it, but I get to watch people see the result of that hard work and feel that wonder and feel that discovery, all the time.

David Copperfield