Derren Brown Quotes & Sayings

When you start to build a serious wardrobe, the navy blazer is the very first piece you should choose. It can be a building block for an entire work and casual wardrobe. — Derren Brown

Few kids seek to learn a skill specifically designed to impress people unless they feel less than impressive themselves. — Derren Brown

I would like a bit of me - that's how I put my back out! — Derren Brown

Booking an act for my Dad's 70th birthday, I wanted a great act and went straight to John Archer- his reputation in the magic world is among the very best. I was so pleased he was able to do it, and he absolutely brought the house down. It was brilliant, hysterically funny, and perfectly pitched for the occasion. He made the evening. I'd recommend him unreservedly. — Derren Brown

I am often dishonest in my techniques ... I happily admit to cheating, it's all part of the game. I hope some of the fun for the viewer comes from not knowing what's real and what isn't — Derren Brown

We see the illusion of individual predilection being maintained, for example, in the array of different styles of iPhone cases available to us. We wonder which of the provided range of colourful or sophisticated sheaths best communicates to the world our unique character. Thus we lean towards the wood effect, or the Batman one (ironically sported, of course), or the vintage Union Jack. Meanwhile, it is much harder to honestly ask ourselves whether our lives would be improved were we not to be attached to our devices quite as umbilically, and how much misery they bring us alongside the various conveniences and amusements. Whether we might be more authentically ourselves if, with a pioneering and curious spirit, we occasionally left them at home. It — Derren Brown

Our fascination with weather: its caprices and changes as an antidote to the eternal repetition of daily life; a helpful illusion of novelty — Derren Brown

If you do grow up feeling as though you don't quite fit in as a child, it's very easy to decide you're certain not going to fit in as an adult. You hang on to your eccentricities and hate the idea of conforming. It's a common pattern. — Derren Brown

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

Moreover, knowledge and investigation help promote wonder they do not destroy it. Whatever our tastes, we can generally appreciate such things as music, art or wine better when we understand a bit about them. We read up on our favourite singers or artists because we feel we can appreciate their work better when we know how they think and what they bring to their work. The giddy delight and curiosity that comes from marvelling at the beauty of this universe is deepened, not cheapened, by the laws and facts science gives us to aid our understanding. In a similar way, the psychological tricks at work behind many seemingly paranormal events are truly more fascinating than the explanation of other-worldiness precisely because they are of this world, and say something about how rich and complex and mysterious we are as human beings to be convinced by such trickery, indeed to want to perpetuate it in the first place. — Derren Brown

Many atheists might proudly proclaim that our lives have no ultimate meaning, yet the business of finding significance in one's life is perhaps the most important part of being human. When we drift into a life without meaning, we soon become a pack of symptoms and pathologies; and without any feeling of significance, many choose to end their lives altogether. — Derren Brown

There is a fine line between wishing to produce child-like astonishment and treating people like infants. — Derren Brown

A lot of unconfident kids do tricks because it's the quickest route to impressing people," he explains. "You can stand behind something amazing and people think you're amazing. — Derren Brown

Magic is a performance, and a performance should have an honesty, a relevance and a resonance if it is to be offered to spectators without insulting them. — Derren Brown

We forget our health and comfort and notice a pinching shoe. Much of living well is detaching from our boring stories of pain and shifting focus — Derren Brown

If someone does not have a specific charity they would like to donate to, that's OK. An undesignated donation would be split up evenly amongst all the charities supported by the Annapolis Area Complex. — Derren Brown

The desire to impress is an efficient means of bringing out one's least impressive qualities. — Derren Brown

Have your cake and eat it ... there's no other reason to have a cake — Derren Brown

To impress people as much as we would wish, we would first need to successfully adopt each of their value systems — Derren Brown

We're terrible at realising what goes on in other people's heads because we are trapped inside our own. — Derren Brown

Magic is not inherently anything. It is what you sell it as. — Derren Brown

I'm a big fan of parrots - I think they're fascinating creatures. Many of them live for longer than us humans and it's interesting to me the way they learn to mimic human voices even though they don't really comprehend what they're saying. — Derren Brown

When [the magician] clicks his fingers and cards change to the four aces, we know we have experienced sleight of hand. Real magic would not be quite that quick and easy. Real magic would take investment. Real magic would draw you in, and make you nervous. — Derren Brown

Each of us is leading a difficult life, and when we meet people we are seeing only a tiny part of the thinnest veneer of their complex, troubled existences. To practise anything other than kindness towards them, to treat them in any way save generously, is to quietly deny their humanity. — Derren Brown

I control the conditions so my testers become my testees. — Derren Brown

Liberating but hard to remember we're just bit-parts in the lives of people we know, who care very little for our secrets — Derren Brown

There are things in your life which you are in control of, and those you're not. You need to not care about those things which you're not in control of, and when you come to really understand that, you can go from being really upset about something to that lovely feeling of being a kid where everything is okay. — Derren Brown

The single most valuable human trait, the one quality every schoolchild and adult should be taught to nurture, is, quite simply, kindness. — Derren Brown

Dull magic is a collection of tricks: great magic should sting. — Derren Brown

In magic we have a variety of "uses" for our art beyond magic itself, which reminds me of the notion of art therapy. The rendering of art inferior to therapy is an interesting one: interesting in the sense that it makes me want to vomit angrily. — Derren Brown