53 Quotes by Ricky Jay

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

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.

Unlike other Jewish families, we didn’t go out for Chinese food on Sundays, but we spent our time in a world of baking powder biscuits and the best shrimp cocktails that ever were.

That’s one of the ways language evolved, by some very obscure form becoming common usage. And I must say that I’m very intrigued by use of language and slang, and criminal underground terms.

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

I suppose that if I could only do one thing, a solid card effect would be pretty high on the list. That’s the root of it all, sleight-of-hand. It’s certainly the thing I feel most comfortable with.

I think the toughest thing about being an actor in a film is to be with a director who doesn’t know what they want. And that can be really, really frustrating.

I never talk much about my family, but my grandfather was friendly with these guys, with magicians and ventriloquists on the highest levels, and I was just... interested.