Derren Brown: Trending quotes (page 7)

“Music is arguably the most affecting of the arts; intelligible to all people yet untranslatable into any other idiom. To Schopenhauer it was a direct expression of the ‘world will’… and was good when he had guests over.”

Derren Brown

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

People , World , Art , Music

“There are three things I noticed about being thirty-three: Failing memory, hair loss and failing memory.”

Derren Brown

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

Memory , Loss

“A good communicator affects our physiology. The power of voice can entrance us – even induce or remove pain.”

Derren Brown

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

Pain , Communication

“The way that we draw faces says so much about the way that we see ourselves and the way that we see each other.”

Derren Brown

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

Way , Drawing

“[Magic] can be poorly presented and surrounded by naffness, and often amounts to little more than childish attempts to fool you. I guess it’s largely to escape those associations that I’ve gone the route I have.”

Derren Brown

TV recordings of stage shows, Mind Reader – An Evening of Wonders (2009), Mind Reader – An Evening of Wonders tour brochure

Fools

“Magic means nothing. It has the potential to connect us to something wonderful, as does any performance, but it is not wonderful in itself, for it is inseparable from the particular performance in which it is experienced. A magician who is too fast, too slow, mumbles, shouts, smells, is unlikeable or incomprehensible will unavoidably taint his magic with his personal failings.”

Derren Brown

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

Personality

“The appreciation of a painting or a piece of music, for example, or even falling in love, is all about our subjectivity. But to decide that the entire universe operates in such a way, let alone to go to war because we are so convinced we are right that others must agree with us or die, that surely should demand a higher level of argument than 'It's true because I really, really feel it is.”

Derren Brown

Books, Tricks of the Mind (2006)

Love , War , Music , Way

“Now I know what you are thinking; “how did he know what was drawn in the envelope?” Clearly, I must have detected in his voice the accent of my home town, Bristol, so he’s only going to be thinking of a tractor or marrying your own sister. A tractor's easier to draw so Bob's your uncle… and your Dad. And you'd be right.”

Derren Brown

Other TV and web appearances, E4 Mind Control Night

Home , Thinking , Sister , Drawing

“There will always be liars, swindlers and charlatans. Hopefully there will also always be the modern Houdinis and the seekers of the truth, snapping at their heels and holding them to account.”

Derren Brown

Books, Harry Houdini on Deception (foreword) (2009)

Truth

“In the same breath, one might add that the atheist is surely as religious as the Christian, in that he has adopted a set of beliefs to which he chooses to rigorously adhere. While it’s temptingly clever to make that claim, it is a nonsensical statement; no more logical than to say that a Christian is a type of atheist. Having a set of beliefs about religion is not the same as being a religious True Believer.”

Derren Brown

Books, Tricks of the Mind (2006)

Religion

“Magicians do not, as a rule, presume that their audiences are intelligent and sensitive enough to want the magic to be challenging and cathartic. This is not a healthy starting point, for it stultifies magic and leaves it too close to children’s entertainment.”

Derren Brown

Books, Absolute Magic - A Model for Powerful Close-Up Performance (2003) second edition

Children , Intelligence

“Under the guise of a motivational seminar, in which I teach my skills to a group of middle-management business men and women, can I get any of them to steal one hundred thousand pounds in what they believe is a genuine armed robbery?”

Derren Brown

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

Women , Men , Motivation , Business

“Participant. A participant is active, a part of the process, and a necessary component of the magical experience. This is how it should be. No magic happens unless the participant perceives it as magical, so she can never be a mere spectator.”

Derren Brown

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

Parting

“I decided that my magic had to change. That I had to give serious thought to presentation. That, in fact, my presentation of the effects is where my impact as a magician lies – I realised that it can turn a good effect into something artistic and stunning.”

Derren Brown

Books, Pure Effect - Direct Mind Reading and Magical Artistry (2000)

Change

“A diner having a row with a waiter in a swanky restaurant chills the blood in a way that a quarrel over a pizza order elsewhere would never do. Compassion is rarely the custom of the privileged.”

Derren Brown

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

Way

“One minute she is a sweet old silly, knitting herself a set of syringe covers and talking about her favourite flowers, and the very next moment she has told you and your friends she has a ring supporting the back of her vagina.”

Derren Brown

Books, Absolute Magic - A Model for Powerful Close-Up Performance (2003) second edition

Support , Flowers