Justin Willman quotes

People think they want to know how magic works, but really they don't. How it works is never as amazing as what the trick was in the first place, so it's never going to make you feel good. Somebody just wanting to know how a trick works is never enough to make me want to tell them.
-- Justin Willman

#Thinking #People #Feel Good

Basically the job of a magician is to do impossible things that challenge the nature of the universe. And I think some magicians buy into that perception a little too much. These days that turns people off a little bit. I'm not a wizard. I don't have special powers. If I did, I would not be doing magic for a living!
-- Justin Willman

#Thinking #People #Challenges

There's a lot of people who can't figure out how to enjoy magic while simultaneously knowing that it's fake. Magic is like breast implants. We know they're fake, but when done well they can give you a feeling of true wonder.
-- Justin Willman

#People #Giving #Fake

People have all these preconceived notions about magicians, like that they're lonely and bitter or they're socially awkward people. I don't know what magician hurt all these people, but I'm constantly having to overcome all these stereotypes. So, no. I'm sure there are just as many magicians who are lonely and bitter as there are comedians, lawyers, or any profession.
-- Justin Willman

#Lonely #Hurt #People

Some people love magic for the right reasons: They love to experience wonder. They don't want to know how it works. In this day and age, we know how everything works. We can Google anything and the answer is never really far away. Magic is a break from that where you get to enjoy mystery. And then there's the people who watch the trick but don't want to enjoy it because they want to figure it out and they feel like I'm challenging their intelligence, which I'm not doing. Those people are hell-bent on not enjoying magic and probably not enjoying their lives either.
-- Justin Willman

#People #Challenges #Google

When we talk about magic a lot of people think you use that to pick up girls. So therefore there's this slimy connotation associated with it, like, "Oh hey, pick a card - my number's on it!" So I think I've avoided ever having people think that's what's happening. I try to make magic the treat of the interaction or the treat of the flirt. I've never gone up and tried to do a trick to get a girl's number, only because I feel like that's what people expect and it feels slimy.
-- Justin Willman

#Girl #Flirting #Thinking

When I'm traveling a lot the flight attendants will ask what I do and if I say I'm a magician then I have to do a trick. But if it's a red eye flight and I haven't slept at all, I'll say I'm a comedian. And then they say, "Do a joke." But if you're a magician you should be able to do a trick anywhere, any time of day. And if it's not the best situation to showcase what I do then I'll offer them tickets to my show that night. Trying to do a magic trick right outside of an airplane lavatory isn't the best viewing conditions.
-- Justin Willman

#Airplane #Eye #Night

Because of a friend, life is a little stronger, fuller, more gracious thing for the friend's existence, whether he be near or far. If the friend is close at hand, that is best; but if he is far away he still is there to think of, to wonder about, to hear from, to write to, to share life and experience with, to serve, to honor, to admire, to love.

We must see what in the Israeli identity - in the Israeli - we can give to other people rather than speaking so often of taking, expanding territory.

There are a lot of people who know me who can't understand for the life of them why I would got to work on something as unserious as baseball. If they only knew.

Universities are not here to be mediums for the coercion of other people, they're here to be mediums for the free exchange of ideas.

The science of anti-Semitism finally comes to explain this phenomenon, enlightening further the consciousness of people, fully satisfying their instinct and its violent eruptions thus legitimized by revealing their cause - the parasitism of the Jews. Thus it gives us the formula of the scientific solution for the problem of Judaism, which in order to realize we have only to apply.

Money has no color. If you can build a better mousetrap, it won't matter whether you're black or white. People will buy it.

But it feels good to love a thing and not expect anything back. It feels good to not get an argument or any pushiness or any rumors or any bullshit. It's love without strings. It's ideal.

You should feel good about yourself because of your accomplishments. Not because somebody yelled at you to feel good about yourself.

I do feel good doing them [family-friendly movies], but it's not going to be my way of life. I'm a comedian.

Put aside ambition for public recognition, and simply do what you do because it feels good inside.