Magic is an art form where you lie and tell people you are lying.
If there isn't at least the threat of violence in art, it tends to be kind of tiresome.
The place we want to explore unpleasantness in the real world is in art.
Nothing fools you better than the lie you tell yourself.
Nobody who is a Penn & Teller fan thinks of us first and foremost as magicians, but as a comedy team.
Doing beautiful things is its own reward.
As a kid, I was a Hitchcock lover; I cared about the dark side of things.
Neuroscientists are novices at deception.
Magicians have done controlled testing in human perception for thousands of years.
Magic's about understanding - and then manipulating - how viewers digest the sensory information.
In America, magic has never been an important part of peoples' lives.
When a magician lets you notice something on your own, his lie becomes impenetrable.
People take reality for granted.
Reality seems so simple. We just open our eyes and there it is. But that doesn't mean it is simple.
If you read Shakespeare's stage directions, all the gore and violence is right in there.
Generally, magicians don't know what to say, so they say stupid and redundant crap like, 'Here I am holding a red ball.'
People do not come to a Penn & Teller show to see a magic show. They just don't. They come to see weird stuff that they can see no place else, that will make them laugh and make the little hairs stand up on the backs of their necks.
The silent thing onstage allows for a kind of intimacy that no conversation can have. If I just shut up, we're forced to look at each other and really confront that moment.
Onstage, I find absolutely nothing but exhilaration in not talking.
The Boy Scouts of America is no longer entirely what people think it is. Essentially, it has been hijacked by religious conservatives.
