You don't have freedom unless you have the freedom to do stupid self-destructive things.

One of the things that Teller and I are obsessed with, one of the reasons that we're in magic, is the difference between fantasy and reality.

Channeling is just bad ventriloquism. You use another voice, but people can see your lips moving.

You get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right.

Atheism is the absence of religion. We don’t really need atheism. We just need to get rid of religion.

If you are doing something for reward or punishment, you do not have morality.

In music, if you hit a wrong note, people forgive you. In magic when something goes wrong, the entire art is destroyed.

I think voting for the lesser of two evils in game theory always leads to more evil.

Much better than the feeling of having things is the feeling of having earned things.

Better to be uneducated than educated by your government.

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality.

I had drunk myself to oblivion, Stepped from the room into a dreamless slumber, My consciousness had parted ways, Taking a well-earned vacation.

We don't want to bury our heads in the sand about serious issues.

Here the ways of men divide. If you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire.

It's one of the reasons [professional politicians] why people's confidence in the electoral system has declined so much. They have all become shadowy political creatures

If you can accept defeat and open your pay envelope without feeling guilty, you're stealing.

There is no common understanding, and no community life. But in a shared activity, each person refers what he is doing to what the other is doing and vice-versa.

We are all bumbling along,side by side, week in, week out, our paths similar in some ways and different in others, all apparently running parallel. But parallel lines never meet.

By the time I'm out of makeup, I'm ready to act.

The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside

The law of the Conservation of Energy is already known — viz., that the sum of all the energies of the universe, actual and potential, is unchangeable.