Olivia Wenscombe: [referring to Angier] He wants me to come work for you and steal your secrets. Alfred Borden: What does he need my secrets for? His trick is top-notch. He vanishes, and then he reappears instantly on the other side of the stage - mu...
Reverend Barney Hood: And now for my next trick, the piece de resistance, I present to you an empty glass. I will now fill this glass with milk. Chris Cawsey: Would it work better with whiskey, Vicar? Reverend Barney Hood: Nothing works better with w...
Pablo Sandoval: Ma'am, did a saint die this morning? Irene Menéndez Hastings: Why? Pablo Sandoval: Because an angel in mourning just walked through the door. Irene Menéndez Hastings: It's just a trick we angels have to look five pounds lighter. Ben...
Luke Skywalker: You don't believe in the Force, do you? Han Solo: Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force c...
Bernadette: Oh. Uh, gather around girls, uh, let me show you a trick. You, um, drink the Gin... [guzzles the entire contents] Bernadette: Aaah! Uh, fill the bottle up with water and then put it back in the fridge. Mitzi: Va-t'en vous. What about the ...
[Reed and Buck discuss a magic trick in a loud and crowded night club] Buck Swope: Doesn't it scare you? Working with evil forces? Reed Rothchild: What? Buck Swope: Evil forces. Reed Rothchild: Evil? No man, it's not evil. It's an illusion. Buck Swop...
Tyrion cocked his head sideways. “Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?” Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.” “So power is a mummer’s trick?�...
But he could not call the doctors at the leprosarium. They would return him to Louisiana. They would treat him and train him and counsel him. They would put him back into life as if his illness were all that mattered, as if wisdom were only skin deep...
There is nothing you can do that profit does not enter into, and fear of loss, and wish for power. You cannot say good morning without knowing which of you is 'superior' to the other, or trying to prove it. You cannot act like a brother to other peop...
My family never talks about feelings, and we certainly never talk about plutonium. It's hard to take something seriously if you can't see it, smell it, touch it, or feel it. Plutonium is a cosmic trick. The invisible enemy, the merry prankster. Can i...
Juilin," she asked hesitantly, "what were you going to do with the salt and cooking oil? Not exactly," she added more quickly. "Just a general idea." He looked at her for a moment. "I do not know. But they did not, either. That is the trick of it; th...
I sit up in bed and watch her fiddle about in the back of my wardrobe. I think she's got a plan. That's what's good about Zoey. She'd better hurry up though, because I'm starting to think of things like carrots. And air. And ducks. And pear trees. Ve...
The reflection was that of a putrefying corpse. By some trick of the light, her face seemed sallow and slipping, the patches of darkness giving the appearance of skin sloughing off in small pockets. I’d almost forgotten the knife in my panic; the w...
There was a direct intimate connection between chastity and political orthodoxy. For how could the fear, the hatred, and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right pitch, except by bottling down some powerful ins...
I’m not sure. But there’s something about the darkness, the stillness of this hour, I think, that creates a language of its own. There’s a strange kind of freedom in the dark; a terrifying vulnerability we allow ourselves at exactly the wrong m...
Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a n...
When a man and woman have sexual relations, who gets the most out of the deal? The man, or the woman? Since we live in a society full of tricks, the man thinks he gets more out of the encounter. But what do men really get out of it? The reality is th...
All war is based in deception (cfr. Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”). Definition of deception: “The practice of deliberately making somebody believe things that are not true. An act, a trick or device entended to deceive somebody”. Thus, all war is...
Those around you can have their novellas, sweet, their short stories of cliché and coincidence, occasionally spiced up with tricks of the quirky, the achingly mundane, the grotesque. A few will even cook up Greek tragedy, those born into misery, des...
If you knew how many hidden depths I had your pretty eyes would pop right out of your winsome face. Not literally of course - that would be disgusting. I wouldn’t envy the man who had to clean up a pair of popped eyes, especially given the state of...
Ciba: "I thought you were supposed to be some big brave war hero. What about that goddamn gold star you polish every night?" Natalya: "You know what this shiny piece of tin is, you fucking space cadet? It's the way stupid boys trick other stupid boys...