I wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times about the amazing effect of shared wonder - how I have an audience filled with people who you'd think would hate each other, people from every religious category, all at the same show at the same time. And it's an amazing phenomenon to watch this shared sense of wonder, where these people who really don't like each other - for good and bad reasons, reasons that make sense and that don't make sense - are in the same room, experiencing this unification.

The key is for the audience never to know, so I have a plan B for every illusion.

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.

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.

The most important thing is presentation.

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."

For me, it's about risk taking, taking things in new directions. Because every single time, no matter how much you learn, you can never say, "Okay, I did the hardest thing I ever did. I'm prepared now. Now it's going to be easy." Of course it's not easy.