Ricky Jay

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

— Ricky Jay

Magicians from the nineteenth century threw cards distances, but I think I'm the first one who made a thing about using them…

— Ricky Jay

That's one of the ways language evolved, by some very obscure form becoming common usage. And I must say that I'm very…

— Ricky Jay

I started doing radio pieces with no clear, preconceived idea, except that I have a tendency to be theatrical.

— Ricky Jay

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

— Ricky Jay

I suppose that if I could only do one thing, a solid card effect would be pretty high on the list. That's…

— Ricky Jay

To obfuscate the reconstruction of the effect - when a magician is fooled by another magician doing magic. In my career that's…

— Ricky Jay

I know absolutely nothing about the 20th Century.

— Ricky Jay

Unlike other Jewish families, we didn't go out for Chinese food on Sundays, but we spent our time in a world of…

— Ricky Jay

There are people who try to figure things out. Often, magic is presented in a way that sets up a challenge that…

— Ricky Jay

Magic is a powerful art that can support a weak performer.

— Ricky Jay

My father was the Formica King of Long Island, and my mother was the daughter of a Bengal Lancer in India.

— Ricky Jay

I'm much more interested in lesser-known eccentrics and characters and performers. Like Matthew Buchinger, who was born in Germany in 1674, had…

— Ricky Jay

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

— Ricky Jay

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

— Ricky Jay

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

— Ricky Jay

In the winters, I enrolled in the hotel management program at Cornell University. I naively thought that I knew something about sleight-of-hand,…

— Ricky Jay

Theft annoys me more than anything else. The purloining of effects from another magician. Some people think it's massive to steal the…

— Ricky Jay

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…

— Ricky Jay

Maybe the the luxury of not having acting be my only profession is that I can be more selective about what I…

— Ricky Jay

I think the toughest thing about being an actor in a film is to be with a director who doesn't know what…

— Ricky Jay

I wasn't obsessed by magic. People say, 'How you can you claim you practiced eight hours a day and weren't obsessed?' Well,…

— Ricky Jay

I don't know what first got me to attack melons. It's not like I ate a bad one and got an upset…

— Ricky Jay

Not only do I lie, I take real pleasure in lying, in the transmission of magic effects.

— Ricky Jay

Sitting with a deck of cards in your hand all day is an obsession. Visiting print shops and bookstores and libraries is…

— Ricky Jay