Sitting with a deck of cards in your hand all day is an obsession. Visiting print shops and bookstores and libraries is an obsession. And writing about this is an obsession. I think, in general, most collectors are obsessed. I think the only form of a rationalized greed is when you're collecting something you are supposedly serious about.

Ricky Jay

I do think deception... There's something kind of odd about tricking people for a living, but ultimately, it's a remarkably honest profession, when you think about it. If you violate that code, and you say you're not using camera tricks, and then you do, I actually think that's a kind of serious moral issue.

Ricky Jay

Dai Vernon, the greatest sleight of hand figure in the history of the art, rarely performed. But he invented magic and had an enormous influence on the whole range of sleight of hand. And so often, the magic he was doing was to fool other magicians.

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 the root of it all, sleight-of-hand. It's certainly the thing I feel most comfortable with.

Ricky Jay

One of the best sleight-of-hand guys I know is a plumber.

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 as weapons.

Ricky Jay

Every acting gig isn't the same, every writing job isn't the same, every live performance isn't the same - the challenge is the level of difficulty or ease, and that may vary.

Ricky Jay

I know absolutely nothing about the 20th Century.

Ricky Jay

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

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 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.

Ricky Jay

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

Ricky Jay

There are enormous dangers in thinking that the world online is the world as it exists, that what you get from your one stroke on the Internet is all there is to know.

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, entertainment and food, and that would be all I needed.

Ricky Jay

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

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

The pain is bad magicians ripping off good ones, doing magic badly, and making a mockery of the art.

Ricky Jay

I love amazing people. I love dazzling them. That's why I think performing magic is one of the greatest things a person can do.

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 secrets of nuclear reactors, but to steal a card move is trivial. They're wrong.

Ricky Jay

Sitting with a deck of cards in your hand all day is an obsession. Visiting print shops and bookstores and libraries is an obsession. And writing about this is an obsession. I think, in general, most collectors are obsessed. I think the only form of a rationalized greed is when you're collecting something you are supposedly serious about.

Ricky Jay

For the most part, magic secrets are available on a level that's overwhelming and frightening, and they are very accessible if you do the tiniest bit of digging. But, that said, there's a certain group of individuals, in which I am included, who are very tight about secrets and don't share them with anyone.

Ricky Jay