Derren Brown: Trending quotes (page 4)

“Shopping Malls: Modern cathedrals to spending money. They’re designed to disorientate us and make us stay longer than we need to. Every brick is there to manipulate us to buy.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

Money

“All of us can be influenced through psychological techniques. For example, if I say “don’t think of a black cat” what do you do? You think of a black cat because the command ‘think of a black cat’ was there in the sentence. Techniques like this can be used to influence people’s thoughts, behaviour, even their memory.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

People , Cats , Thinking , Memory

“In the nineteenth century, so-called ‘psychics’ were often tested by having to guess the details on a postcard sealed in an envelope. Often they did surprisingly well so i thought it would be worth presenting some modern day non-psychics with the same challenge.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

“We form many of our political opinions through reading papers and unconsciously absorbing the rhetoric of the journalists. Later, we spout the same opinions as our own. This parallels the way we respond to any authority and it’s something politicians understand well.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Way , Understanding , Reading

“Some people believe that a person’s spirit is captured when they are photographed. I invite those of you who don’t believe that to take a photograph of someone you love a stab it repeatedly with a pair of scissors. Maybe they do capture something of the soul.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Love , People , Soul , Personality

“How would I describe what I do? I suppose a mixture of psychological reading and showmanship and a special form of poncing-about which kind of comes together to form the effect of thought reading and psychological influence but non, non-psychic… not ‘non-non-psychic’, non-psychic.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

Reading

“I’m going to teach them some genuine skills that I use, peppered with some spurious pop-psychology and quite a lot of bullshit.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Derren Brown: The Heist (2006)

“Animals can also be ‘hypnotised’. Flip a rabbit on its back, hold it firmly in position with its head back for a couple of minutes, and you’ll find it will become perfectly motionless and unresponsive, until you clap your hands loudly above its head.”

Derren Brown

TV recordings of stage shows, Svengali (2012), Svengali tour brochure

Animals

“Canterbury Cathedral: The first ever pocket watch was found in the walls of its cloister many hundreds of years ago. I decided to come, in the rain, to play with the locals and, if time permitted, attend the evening service.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Time

“This week, we’re in Whitby on the North-east coast where my great-uncle, Count Dracula, first touched British soil in the shape of a big dog.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Dogs

“Some athletes use the mind to try and improve stamina and strength. Can I use my mind to take it away?”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

“A lot is said about children having stronger psychic ability because they’re so unjaded and innocent. This excruciating view of children is generally expounded by people who think like children and perhaps can be forgiven.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Children , People , Thinking

“Russian Roulette should not, under any circumstances, be copied. It is extremely dangerous.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Derren Brown Plays Russian Roulette Live (2003)

“I have had no formal training in painting: I gave up Art A level because I was sick of drawing peppers.”

Derren Brown

Books, Portraits (2009)

Art , Drawing , Painting , Training

“(Speaking about Chris Ryan, ex-SAS) Charming! Sat there in his white jeans and wanted me to fail. I don't know what he had against me. I'm sure it was nothing to do with my over use of the word ‘podia’, which I hoped would irritate him a little bit more than it did. Some people…”

Derren Brown

Other TV and web appearances, E4 Mind Control Night

People , Hope

“In 1957, James Vicary, a market researcher, conducted a six week test in a New Jersey movie theatre. A high-speed projector repeatedly and subliminally flashed the slogans ‘drink Coke’ and ‘eat popcorn’ over the film. I thought I’d make my own cinema ad to try something similar. According to Vicary, popcorn sales went up by 57.5% and Coke sales by 18.1%… Whether Vicary’s results were due to the subliminals can never be shown and the experiment has become shrouded in urban myth. This is the Genesis Cinema in East London, which kindly agreed to include our ad amongst the trailers for a screening of Ocean's Twelve, a carefully chosen film which, if the ad works, the audience will not be able to remember. Not a bad thing.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Drink , Speed

“It’s Derren Brown, it’s Derren Brown, it’s Derren Brown, it’s Derren Brown. He’s very kind, he’ll read your mind, even if you’re blind, your thoughts he’ll find”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Reading

“I like my parrot, Figaro. Not in a wrong way – I mean, yes, he’ll do anything for a mouth full of seed but nothing tacky.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

Way

“For me, the most enjoyable aspect of going out and performing is that I never know how susceptible people will be to my methods.”

Derren Brown

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

People

“Any form of card-case, beyond the most battered and unassuming, is surely an aesthetic and social travesty. To withdraw, say, a silver case from the pocket before removing a card is surely to trumpet a ludicrous gaucheness and maladroit pretension. It is impossible for the intended recipient of the card to view the case as anything other than a misjudged piece of peacockery; unfeasible to avoid a brief inner commentary along the lines of oh, he’s bought one of those… he decided this would make the act of handing over a card a signal of his success as a businessman and a certain refined elegance as a gentleman… probably picked it out himself… please God it was a Father’s Day gift from a child who knew no better.”

Derren Brown

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

God , Success