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

In the winters, I enrolled in the hotel management program at Cornell University. I naively thought that I knew something about sleight-of-hand, entertainment and food, and that would be all I needed.

Theft annoys me more than anything else. The purloining of effects from another magician. Some people think it's massive to steal the secrets of nuclear reactors, but to steal a card move is trivial. They're wrong.

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

Writing is the only thing in my life that doesn't get easier. It just doesn't.

The pain is bad magicians ripping off good ones, doing magic badly, and making a mockery of the art.

It probably is harder to fool people when they know they're going to be fooled.