David Quotes

I'm competitive to a fault, so of course every week I'm just like, "I want to win, I want to do great."

The further you go on the show, the larger the budget gets. But in the beginning they were just like, "Here's a hundred bucks in L.A. Good luck."

I got to play with ZZ Top and introduce Bryan Adams and George Michael. And to have it all topped off by me winning 'American Idol?!' It's pretty absurd.

I absolutely think the Seattle grunge sound was instrumental to my music education.

I think the negative reinforcement really helped me in my very beginnings.

Usually, about two years of work go into each illusion, whether it's big or small. Two years of work on each five-minute piece.

There was an old brochure for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts with a quote from Robert Redford or someone, that said, "You're only as good as you dare to be bad."

Everyone understands cards and relates to it. They have them in their homes and in their hands, so it makes them very accessible.

I love creating new things. It's kind of my job, it's what I do, and I really have fun with it.

I was published in Tarbell Course in Magic when I was 12.

I was teaching magic at NYU when I was 16.

Never take "NO" for an answer.

But Vegas is really my first home.

I'm fascinated by the similarities and differences between comedians and magicians.

I started as a ventriloquist, a very bad ventriloquist. And people saw my lips moving and it was ridiculous, so finally I decided I'd better change my occupation.

I'm a horrible karaoke singer.

There was another guy suggested. He was a tall and dark-haired and Jewy, and I said, "No, he's too close to me." It ended up being Jerry Seinfeld.

My mother was really loving and wonderful and tough as hell.

My father wanted to be an actor, dreamed about being an actor, but he gave it up because my mom and his family told him, "You're never going to make it; it's too tough out there."

Performing my show is something I constantly think about.

I invented magic stuff; it came very easily. Now, I sucked at everything else, but I was good at magic as a kid.

Tommy Chong connects to the pipe a lot.

[ Gil Cates] said, "You've got a point of view with your magic. There's this comedy to it, there's drama. You're telling stories with magic."

Magic was a thing that, when I did it, it made all the kids go, "Ah, that's cool."

As I did more of that, I realized, "Well, maybe I should do more magic."

I fell in love with magic acts and bridged into that.

All of the [Bob] Fosse-esque movements and point of view informed years and years of what I would do.

I'm a magician, not a singer.

Later on, towards the end of their lives, I thanked her. I said, "Mom, you were really tough." She said, "I wasn't tough! I always believed in you."

I'm really happy that I had the foundations of knowing where I came from.

When I started doing magic as a kid, my parents had no problem.

I'm a big fan of the Pixar movies, and Ed Catmull, who wrote a book about his experiences producing them, talks about how it takes three or four years to get it right.

All my TV shows are done live in front of audiences, and all the material I take on the road and travel with them test them for hundreds and hundreds of shows before I shoot them for TV.

When you see me do a five-minute thing, there's been about two years of preparation behind that. You know, I find that's what it takes to really make it the level of quality I prefer.

I'm inventing new principles. The audience has a point of view that no one can predict.

The more educated you get, the better shot you have to get it right, but if you're really trying something different, it's a challenge every time.

To make [parents] happy, I went to Fordham University for three weeks, while at the same time running ads in Variety, "magician-actor David Copperfield."

I really wanted to succeed. I wanted to be accepted. I read every magic book that I possibly could, studied every move, and by the time I was 12, they really accepted me, they embraced me.

For one of my specials, I said, "I'm going to make an airplane disappear." Okay! And the next day, everything went crazy - it was like breaking the internet before the internet.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I find revealing the secrets of magic quite reprehensible.

I have always been interested in pushing magic forward.

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

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

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