Derren Brown quotes - page 5

If you have never been to a live show of mine, then expect almost a full hour of great songs interspersed with hilarious anecdotes about my career, and lengthy clips from my embarrassingly successful channel 4 television shows. (Derren Brown)
Memory tricks, amongst other things which I'll show you, have got me banned from a lot of Casinos in this country. View quote
Derren Brown
In magic, anyone with a shop-bought trick deck is a magician, and if people aren't fooled they usually pretend to be, and they are understandably likely to mistake being fooled as a sign of being in the presence of an excellent magician. View quote
Derren Brown
Under British law, you're not allowed to fire a live round unless you are a qualified armourer. This is why the live game has to take place overseas. View quote
Derren Brown
Moderate religious people may of course express distaste for such violence, pretending that the clear calls for grotesque and violent behaviour in their sacred book aren't there and cherry-picking the 'nice bits', but they are still guilty of not opening up the subject of belief to rational discourse, and in doing so are part of the machinery that leads to all the ugliness caused by fundamentalism. View quote
Derren Brown
Every week we go to the supermarket and every week we allow ourselves to be manipulated by the packaging and layout of the goods. View quote
Derren Brown
Performing the magic, for me, is not about convincing anyone I have amazing abilities. It's about providing a journey which comes to a place where the brain starts spinning. And of course, the best brains spin the most. View quote
Derren Brown
What makes us dream of some things and not others? Why might we pick up on a trivial event from the day and not something more important? Would it be possible to have someone dream of specific subjects by subtly suggesting those ideas? View quote
Derren Brown
There are three things I noticed about being thirty-three: Failing memory, hair loss and failing memory. View quote
Derren Brown
A good communicator affects our physiology. The power of voice can entrance us – even induce or remove pain. View quote
Derren Brown
The way that we draw faces says so much about the way that we see ourselves and the way that we see each other. (Derren Brown)
[Magic] can be poorly presented and surrounded by naffness, and often amounts to little more than childish attempts to fool you. I guess it's largely to escape those associations that I've gone the route I have. View quote
Derren Brown
Magic means nothing. It has the potential to connect us to something wonderful, as does any performance, but it is not wonderful in itself, for it is inseparable from the particular performance in which it is experienced. A magician who is too fast, too slow, mumbles, shouts, smells, is unlikeable or incomprehensible will unavoidably taint his magic with his personal failings. View quote
Derren Brown
There will always be liars, swindlers and charlatans. Hopefully there will also always be the modern Houdinis and the seekers of the truth, snapping at their heels and holding them to account. View quote
Derren Brown
In the same breath, one might add that the atheist is surely as religious as the Christian, in that he has adopted a set of beliefs to which he chooses to rigorously adhere. While it's temptingly clever to make that claim, it is a nonsensical statement; no more logical than to say that a Christian is a type of atheist. Having a set of beliefs about religion is not the same as being a religious True Believer. View quote
Derren Brown
Magicians do not, as a rule, presume that their audiences are intelligent and sensitive enough to want the magic to be challenging and cathartic. This is not a healthy starting point, for it stultifies magic and leaves it too close to children's entertainment. View quote
Derren Brown
Under the guise of a motivational seminar, in which I teach my skills to a group of middle-management business men and women, can I get any of them to steal one hundred thousand pounds in what they believe is a genuine armed robbery? View quote
Derren Brown
Participant. A participant is active, a part of the process, and a necessary component of the magical experience. This is how it should be. No magic happens unless the participant perceives it as magical, so she can never be a mere spectator. View quote
Derren Brown
I decided that my magic had to change. That I had to give serious thought to presentation. That, in fact, my presentation of the effects is where my impact as a magician lies – I realised that it can turn a good effect into something artistic and stunning. View quote
Derren Brown
One minute she is a sweet old silly, knitting herself a set of syringe covers and talking about her favourite flowers, and the very next moment she has told you and your friends she has a ring supporting the back of her vagina. View quote
Derren Brown
The appreciation of a painting or a piece of music, for example, or even falling in love, is all about our subjectivity. But to decide that the entire universe operates in such a way, let alone to go to war because we are so convinced we are right that others must agree with us or die, that surely should demand a higher level of argument than 'It's true because I really, really feel it is. (Derren Brown)
How would I describe what I do? I suppose a mixture of psychological reading and showmanship and a special form of poncing-about which kind of comes together to form the effect of thought reading and psychological influence but non, non-psychic... not ‘non-non-psychic', non-psychic. View quote
Derren Brown
(In answer to the question ‘How would you describe yourself in three words?') View quote
Derren Brown
Some people like to talk of intuition as a way of knowing truth; that gut reactions are as good as evidence based facts. It's a really silly way of thinking... View quote
Derren Brown
In 1957, James Vicary, a market researcher, conducted a six week test in a New Jersey movie theatre. A high-speed projector repeatedly and subliminally flashed the slogans ‘drink Coke' and ‘eat popcorn' over the film. I thought I'd make my own cinema ad to try something similar. According to Vicary, popcorn sales went up by 57.5% and Coke sales by 18.1%... Whether Vicary's results were due to the subliminals can never be shown and the experiment has become shrouded in urban myth. This is the Genesis Cinema in East London, which kindly agreed to include our ad amongst the trailers for a screening of Ocean's Twelve, a carefully chosen film which, if the ad works, the audience will not be able to remember. Not a bad thing. View quote
Derren Brown