I find revealing the secrets of magic quite reprehensible.

I was teaching magic at NYU when I was 16.

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."

You have to learn certain skills to present magic.

Let sleeping dogs lie — who wants to rouse 'em?

Actually, I started as a ventriloquist and my music teacher said, "Why don't you emcee the talent show?" My act was out of the back of Boys' Life magazine-they had a whole series of jokes in the back of Boys' Life magazine for Boy Scouts. So my act was jokes with my ventriloquist figure, and it was really bad, but I walked into the classroom afterward and the kids went, "Wow, you're cool." I wasn't cool at all, but I thought, "Well, this is a pretty good deal."

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