“Dull magic is a collection of tricks: great magic should sting.”
Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist
Books, Harry Houdini on Deception (foreword) (2009)
The Timeless World of Play http://books.google.com/books?id=Rp3TJUCT9soC&q=%22Snatching+the+eternal+out+of+the+desperately+fleeting+is+the+great+magic+trick+of+human+existence%22&pg=PA6#v=onepage, an introductory essay to The Rose Tattoo (1951)
“Dull magic is a collection of tricks: great magic should sting.”
Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist
Books, Harry Houdini on Deception (foreword) (2009)
Martin Gardner (1914–2010) recreational mathematician and philosopher
Mathematics, Magic, and Mystery https://books.google.com/books?id=-kOFBQAAQBAJ&pg=PR11#v=onepage&q=%22Mathematical%20magic%20combines%22%23v%3Dsnippet&f=false (1956), p. ix
Ken Kesey (1935–2001) novelist
Trip of a Lifetime (1999)
Context: What I always wanted to be was a magician... My real upbringing when I was a teenager was doing magic shows, all over the state, with my father and brothers. Doing magic, you not only have to be able to do a trick, you have to have a little story line to go with it. And writing is essentially a trick.
John Steinbeck book The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
Introduction
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)
“Human reason is snatching everything to itself, leaving nothing for faith.”
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) French abbot, theologian
Reported in Walter Nigg, The Heretics: Heresy Through the Ages (1962) (who cites Adolph Hausrath 1895 as a source)
Context: The faith of simplicity is mocked, the secrets of Christ profaned, questions on the highest things are impertinently asked, the Fathers scorned because they were disposed to conciliate rather than solve such problems. Human reason is snatching everything to itself, leaving nothing for faith. It falls upon things which are beyond it... desecrates sacred things more than clarifies them. It does not unlock mysteries and symbols, but tears them asunder; it makes nought of everything to which it cannot gain access and disdains to believe all such things.
Morrissey (1959) English singer
from "I've always felt like an exile" by Andrew Billen in The Times (30th May 2006)
In interviews etc., About love