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.

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.

As a magician, I try to show things to people that seem impossible. And 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 practice, it's training and experimenting, while pushing through the pain to be the best that I can be. And that's what magic is to me.

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.

In truth, the only restrictions on our capacity to astonish ourselves and each other are imposed by our own minds.

To most magicians, cards themselves are marvels...For one thing, they feel special in your hand. Touching them, holding them, shuffling - the whole process is almost poetic. If you're in a room full of magicians and someone just mentions the word cards, within seconds, everyone is digging into their pockets and pulling out a deck of cards. It's one of the most amazing feelings ever.

As a kid, I always was obsessed with Houdini.