I think a lot of people just assumed I came to L.A. to do more television and get into show business.

If it sounds too good to be true, it always is.

I suppose that if I could only do one thing, a solid card effect would be pretty high on the list. That's the root of it all, sleight-of-hand. It's certainly the thing I feel most comfortable with.

I always read what I write out loud, and I did that long before any radio thing. My editor finds that unusual.

I'm pretty fortunate that I'm in the films I'm in largely because the directors have asked me to be in them. I'd love to do more of them, but the writing and historical stuff I'll probably always do.

I'm probably the only kid in history whose parents made him stop taking music lessons. They made me stop studying the accordion.

Once you get into the era of the printed book, it gets a little easier. After years and years, you make a serious survey of that literature, and then you make it more specific depending on what kind of case appears. I never set out to collect material on cheating at bowling, but I found out that after 20 years, I had a lot of material on cheating at bowling.