David Blaine Quotes
Magician
I believe that fear of life brings a greater fear of death.
I'd like to bring magic back to the place it used to be 100 years ago.
Whether you're shuffling a deck of cards or holding your breath, magic is pretty simple: It comes down to training, practice, and experimentation, followed up by ridiculous pursuit and relentless perseverance.
As a kid I used to hold my breath longer than anybody else, and then I heard stories about people accidently underwater for 45 minutes - how do you recover from that? It's not a miracle. Something allows us to survive.
But as they say about sharks, it's not the ones you see that you have to worry about, it's the ones you don't see.
In truth, the only restrictions on our capacity to astonish ourselves and each other are imposed by our own minds.
I think great whites are the most beautiful and perfect creatures I've ever seen.
We are all capable of infinitely more than we believe.
I think that when Evel Knievel crashed over the fountain at Caesar's, it kind of gave you a credibility and then anticipation for everything he did.
I'd always wanted to do these types of things - pieces of magic I could put out not as illusions, but really doing it.
I think everything I do is normal, not paranormal but normal. It's using the power of the mind to achieve whatever we can endure.
Magic's an art where you use slight of hand or illusion to create wonder. And I was just intrigued with that idea.
I just believe that the feeling of wonder is amazing. I am pushing myself as far as I can humanly push myself... I can only hope for the best and expect the worse.
I was obsessed with the idea of fasting and isolation.
I'd go to Coney Island to hang out, and I saw a magician doing a rope trick on the boardwalk. I was fascinated. I guess that's how it started.
I think magic, whether I'm holding my breath or shuffling a deck of cards, is pretty simple. It's practice, it's training, and it's - It's practice, it's training and experimenting, while pushing through the pain to be the best that I can be.
I do a lot of research on what people have done in the past.
My mother encouraged it so much. She was so supportive. Even if as a kid, I would do the dumbest trick, which now that I look back on some things, she would love it, she would say that's amazing, or if I'd make the ugliest drawing, she would hang it up. She was amazing.
I have not had time to reflect on my own truths in many years.
My only fear is the unknown.
As a kid, I always was obsessed with Houdini.
I thought instead of burying myself under dirt, I'd bury myself under water so everybody could see that you're there.
I consider myself a showman, and I love magic, and I love art, and I love performance, and they're all separate.
Basically, I was a kid growing up with a single mother in Brooklyn.
I hope people remember me as a guy who brought magic to the people. You know, pushed the boundaries of wonder.
I remember finding a Houdini book at the library and seeing an image of him chained on the side of a building. He looked so intense and scary, and I couldn't get that image out of my head. That started building up my love of magic.
I remember my mother had this deck of cards that her mother had given her and that she passed on to me. It was a gypsy tarot deck that I used to carry everywhere.
People haven't even begun to tap into the potential of what the mind is possible of doing. We only use a certain percentage of our brains.
When I was about 19, I shot a tape of me doing magic just to people on the streets, and I would edit together all the reactions and I kept pushing this idea, and then ABC came on board and made my first show.
I think anybody can do any of these if they train. I don't recommend it, but anybody could do it if there was a need.
I think that, when you die, you go back to where you came from before you were born. So I don't think death is a bad thing.
I don't think you can say something is or isn't magic. That's what was cool about Houdini, because he was a magician who had a magic show, but he was also an escape artist, and they kind of, over time, blended together. They both kind of enhance each other, I think.
Well, I also love magic, which is, you know, different than showmanship. Magic's an art where you use slight of hand or illusion to create wonder.
If I asked you to stand in one spot for 35 hours or a certain length of time, you could do it.
It was just like a digital fixation with cards and math and science and then I started to look at images of great magicians from Houdini down the line.
I've always liked artists like Chris Burden, who would take performances, put them in galleries, and then do things that were on the edge.
My mother was a teacher, and when she wanted to show me art and literature and science, she'd take me to museums, parks and free exhibitions.