We're terrible at realising what goes on in other people's heads because we are trapped inside our own.

Have your cake and eat it... there's no other reason to have a cake

I control the conditions so my testers become my testees.

The single most valuable human trait, the one quality every schoolchild and adult should be taught to nurture, is, quite simply, kindness.

To impress people as much as we would wish, we would first need to successfully adopt each of their value systems

...there is a fine line between wishing to produce child-like astonishment and treating people like infants.

The desire to impress is an efficient means of bringing out one’s least impressive qualities.

We forget our health and comfort and notice a pinching shoe. Much of living well is detaching from our boring stories of pain and shifting focus

Magic is a performance, and a performance should have an honesty, a relevance and a resonance if it is to be offered to spectators without insulting them.

I am often dishonest in my techniques ... I happily admit to cheating, it's all part of the game. I hope some of the fun for the viewer comes from not knowing what's real and what isn't

Dull magic is a collection of tricks: great magic should sting.

Never see adversity as a disability, rather see it as a specia-ability. As an opportunity to believe, an opportunity to accomplish

The most exciting thing I aspire to do is to write something new that I know is going to work, or perform something that I know is going to make people laugh.

Sport, which mimics the language and emotional intensity of war but eliminates the fatal destruction, may be a form of redemption.

Now that I've got the will of the people at my back, I'm going to start enforcing the one-question rule. That was three questions.

Shakespeare's stories are still very strong. He structured fantastic stories about things that were fundamental to the human being and psyche.

Behold congenial Autumn comes, the Sabbath of the Year.

The one principle that surrounds everything else is that of stewardship; that we are the managers of everything that God has given us

Power's footstool is opinion and his throne the human heart.

At the end of the day, it's about the reader's attachment to and belief in the magical elements that make or break magical realism.

O King, believe not this hard-hearted man!