You lose your sense of wonder the more you learn, right? When you go to film school and learn about moviemaking, you go to see movies and then only see where the lights are, where the cuts are, watching it from a technical basis, nodding your head, "Oh, that was good." The feeling of surprise, the feeling of being transported is further away.
David CopperfieldLater, when I was at Caesar's Palace, and [Joe and Gil Cates] were trying to get me to have opening acts for the show, they gave me a list of people, and Rosie O'Donnell was one of them. I said, "I don't really need any opening acts. I have funny stuff in the show, and I do a lot of comedy and stuff."
David CopperfieldI record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
David CopperfieldWhen I was a kid, people wanted to be an astronaut. Today, kids want to be famous, and that's totally the wrong approach. You have to have authenticity in what you're doing. You have to really care about the core message of what you're saying, and then everything else will fall into place.
David CopperfieldActually, 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."
David Copperfield