Tricks Quotes - Page 7

• Death is the great gamer with a sleeve of tricks.

  Carson McCullers

  Death, Gamer, Sleeves

  Carson McCullers (1998). “Clock Without Hands”, p.32, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out. It is always near at hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack; and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.

  John Tillotson

  Truth, Lying, Men

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• Wheresoe'er I turn my view,
  All is strange, yet nothing new:
  Endless labor all along,
  Endless labor to be wrong:
  Phrase that Time has flung away;
  Uncouth words in disarray,
  Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet,
  Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.

  Samuel Johnson

  Views, Poetry, Phrases

  Tobias George Smollett, Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith (1810). “The Poetical Works of Doctors Smollett, Johnson, and Goldsmith”, p.113

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• If people are fans of 'Mindfreak,' they are going to be so excited with 'Believe.' They are actually going to see those illusions that people think can only happen with trick photography.

  Criss Angel

  Photography, Believe, Thinking

  "Exclusive: Backstage interview with Criss Angel as Believe is moved to Halloween". Interview with Robin Leach, lasvegassun.com. September 18, 2008.

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• I was a lawyer for 10 years, and when youre in law, things really have to get done, or somebody sues you. Its a great trick.

  Stephan Pastis

  Years, Law, Done

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• The film is the first art form capable of demonstrating how matter plays tricks on man.

  Walter Benjamin

  Art, Men, Play

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.257, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The supreme trick of mass insanity is that it persuades you that the only abnormal person is the one who refuses to join in the madness of others, the one who tries vainly to resist. We will never understand totalitarianism if we do not understand that people rarely have the strength to be uncommon.

  Eugene Ionesco

  People, Insanity, Trying

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• All human existence is a trick of light.

  Don DeLillo

  Light, Existence, Humans

  Don DeLillo (2011). “The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories”, p.195, Simon and Schuster

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• With the White Stripes we were trying to trick people into not realising we were playing the blues. We did not want to come off like white kids trying to play black music from 100 years ago so a great way to distract them was by dressing in red, white and black.

  Jack White

  Kids, Years, Play

  "Jack White: 'I knew we'd get into these places and stir things up'". Interview with Sarfraz Manzoor, www.theguardian.com. March 13, 2010.

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• One of the tricks to writing great plays is to get people in a room together and not let them leave. You want the tension to escalate. Keeping them there is the hardest part, so you have to take away any excuse for them to leave.

  Adam Rapp

  Writing, Play, People

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• The average person might articulate them differently, but we all think about interpersonal relationships in one way or another. Writers just express that in different ways and capture it in different ways. To some degree, we're all thinking about the same things. It's the zeitgeist. The trick, in a way, as a writer, is to hope that your interests in some sense link up with the culture around you.

  Jennifer Egan

  Thinking, Average, Degrees

  Interview with Marah Eakin, www.avclub.com. October 13, 2016.

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• People should get married because they have finally seen the folly of being single: "Oh, this is all just kind of a bad magic trick. I just keep bending over to reach for this wallet on a string. How much longer am I gonna do that?"

  Jerry Seinfeld

  Being Single, People, Magic

  "Jerry Seinfeld Wants to Save Your Marriage". Interview with Lucy Kaylin, www.oprah.com. April 2010.

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• When I first started doing my stand-up act, I played the banjo, did comedy, magic tricks, juggled, read poetry. I stuck it all in. I didn't know you were supposed to just stand up and tell jokes. Essentially, that's what my act became: those five elements - except I dropped the poetry.

  Steve Martin

  Magic, Elements, Firsts

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• There is order in the universe, even though it looks like chaos. We separate the world into categories: this is good and this is bad. But life is set up to trick us. It's a series of illusions we invest in. And ultimately those investments don't serve our understanding, because physicality is always going to let you down, because physicality doesn't last.

  Madonna Ciccone

  Order, Understanding, World

  "Madonnarama!". Interview with Rich Cohen, www.vanityfair.com. May 2008.

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• The trick is not to get too fanatical about getting the accent too accurate because then that becomes a mask. What I try to do is just painting and sketching some of the sounds without obliterating my own voice.

  Anthony Hopkins

  Voice, Trying, Sound

  "The World's Fastest Indian - Anthony Hopkins interview". Interview with Jack Foley, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• Sometimes it comes out in what I call tricksy behavior. That's not always easy to deal with, but it's fascinating. The key thing is to make sure that somebody's tricks don't trip up somebody else.

  Kenneth Branagh

  Keys, Sometimes, Easy

  Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. December 19, 2011.

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• When auditioning, I try to imagine that I'm the only person that they [directors] are seeing that day because it can be overwhelming, in the same sense that it could be overwhelming if you try to fulfil everyone's expectations rather than the people closest to you in the creative process, be it your director, or fellow actors and the writers. So, that's kind of it - I try to trick myself into believing that no one has ever gone there before.

  Benedict Cumberbatch

  Believe, People, Expectations

  "Star Trek Into Darkness - Benedict Cumberbatch interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• Lovers always believe one another's sleight-of-hand tricks.

  Mason Cooley

  Love, Believe, Hands

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• What is the disease which manifests itself in an inability to leave a party--any party at all--until it is all over and the lightsare being put out?... I suppose that part of this mania for staying is due to a fear that, if I go, something good will happen and I'll miss it. Somebody might do card tricks, or shoot somebody else.

  Robert Benchley

  Party, Missing, Curiosity

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• As he walks away on his own two feet--the toddler's body-mind has reached its moment of perfection. The world is his and he the mighty conqueror of all he beholds.... As long as mother sticks around in the wings, the mighty acrobat confidently performs his trick of twirling in circles, walking on tiptoe, jumping, climbing, staring, naming. He is joyous, filled with his grandeur and wondrous omnipotence.

  Louise J. Kaplan

  Mother, Omnipotence, Circles

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• Family life in Western society since the time of the Old Testament has been a struggle to maintain patriarchy, male domination, and double standards in the face of a natural drift towards monogamous bonding. Young men have been called upon to prove their masculinity by their willingness to die in warfare, and young women have been called upon to prove their femininity by their willingness to die for their man. Women have been asked to appear small, dumb, and helpless so men would feel big and strong, brave, and clever. It's been a trick.

  Frank Pittman

  Strong, Clever, Struggle

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• A bank is a confidence trick. If you put up the right signs, the wizards of finance themselves will come in and ask you to take their money.

  Christina Stead

  Wizards, Finance, Asks

  Christina Stead (2012). “House of All Nations”, p.179, Open Road Media

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• English general and singular terms, identity, quantification, and the whole bag of ontological tricks may be correlated with elements of the native language in any of various mutually incompatible ways, each compatible with all possible linguistic data, and none preferable to another save as favored by a rationalization of the native language that is simple and natural to us.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Simple, Data, Native Language

  Willard Van Orman Quine, Roger F. Gibson (2004). “Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine”, p.93, Harvard University Press

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• I don't get a chance to cry that often on film, so I was hoping that talent would come my way, that day. I cheated, I guess, when I just started looking at my technology device - my iPhone - to look at pictures of my kids, before I did the scene where I had to cry. That was a good trick that I found.

  Jason Bateman

  Kids, Technology, Iphone

  "Jason Bateman Talks Disconnect, Cyber-Bullying, His Feelings about Technology, and More". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. April 11, 2013.

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• It's a tough trick to be able to create an intelligent movie that has socio-political commentary, and also has the emotional and moving stuff, at the same time.

  Jodie Foster

  Moving, Intelligent, Emotional

  "Comic-Con: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster and Sharlto Copley Talk About Their Characters and the Themes of ELYSIUM". Interview with Christins Radish, collider.com. July 14, 2012.

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