Copperfield Quotes & Sayings

It wasn't just about doing tricks. It's about taking an audience to another place, a special place, so they can really suspend their disbelief. Its about amazing the audience as well as moving them. — David Copperfield

In magic, it takes two or three years for me to create a 5-minute illusion for me to get it to the level I want. — David Copperfield

I started reading Dickens when I was about 12, and I particularly liked all of the orphan books. I always liked books about young people who are left on their own with the world, and the four children's books I've written feature that very thing: children that are abandoned by their families or running away from their families or ignored by their families and having to grow up quicker than they should, like David Copperfield - having to be the hero of their own story. — John Boyne

For my father, being kind was natural ... I have to really work at it. I love competing and winning, conquest - not words you usually associate with kindness. — David Copperfield

I will now make a scorpion appear in Osama bin Laden's pants — David Copperfield

When people ask about relationships, they always say, "How did you guys meet?" Not, "OMG, tell me about your third year! And when a relationship is in trouble, the desperate couple is always trying to recapture the magic of when they first met. The real tragedy is that, without time travel or amnesia, it's impossible to ever get back there. Which is why to most people, marriage is about as magical as watching David Copperfield make Claudia Schiffer disappear. — Shane Kuhn

While reading 'David Copperfield' in the middle of the night - probably because of the light, I had insomnia for the first time - I looked out of the window and thought, 'If this is what books can do, this is what I want to do.' — Siri Hustvedt

It had been a startling day for young Copperfield: most of the morning confined in an enema-bag carton; his first attempt at flight; his long fall through the weeds; and then sitting on that dead man's face. — John Irving

Steerforth, laughing, took me by the arm and led me out. We went downstairs, one behind another. Near the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on my back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation for it. A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets! There was an indistinct talk of its being wet. I considered it frosty. Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, which somebody produced from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for I hadn't had it on before. Steerforth then said, 'You are all right, Copperfield, are you not?' and I told him, 'Neverberrer. — Charles Dickens

I need a form of escape even when I'm working really hard. — David Copperfield

Magic really helped me. — David Copperfield

It's in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield — David Nicholls

It's really hard to think of one kind of magic as a favorite. I've been really fortunate in that I've been able to perform such a diverse range of things. — David Copperfield

No self-respecting gay guy would have ever made some of the hair and clothing choices I am still trying to live down. — David Copperfield

It is the unspoken ethic of all magicians to not reveal the secrets. — David Copperfield

I went to NYU completely with the idea I wanted to be the next David Copperfield. — Michael Carbonaro

I learned that there were two ways I could live my life: following my dreams or doing something else. Dreams aren't a matter of chance, but a matter of choice. When I dream, I believe I am rehearsing my future. — David Copperfield

When I was a kid, I just read and read. We were lucky enough to have gone to England and had a whole bunch of Penguin Puffins books, like The Land of Green Ginger by Noel Langley, which is hilarious. I would love to be able to write a book like that, but I don't know that I have a humorous bone in my body when it comes to writing. Once on a Time by A.A. Milne. I read a lot of old, old fantasy stuff. The Carbonelbooks by Barbara Sleigh. Then when I got a little older I loved Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I was a big fan of romance and when I got a little bit older I would read a Harlequin romance or a Georgette Heyer novel and then David Copperfield, and then another genre book and then Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy. I was that kind of reader. One book that I loved was I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I loved voice and that book had it in spades. And then of course I grew into loving Jane Eyre. — Franny Billingsley

The first trick I bought at Macy's was a little wooden board where a quarter would appear and disappear. — David Copperfield

A few years back, they jacked David Copperfield in West Palm Beach, for Chrissake. Yes, it's funny: "Yo, empty your pockets," and he pulls out a bunny rabbit. But it's also depressing. If someone who can make himself disappear isn't safe, who is? — Colin Quinn

My goal was becoming the next David Copperfield. I learned how to be a performer by emulating him as a kid - his formula of just talking to people onstage, being free to improvise, being charming and witty with a crowd, together with great, beautiful magic. — Michael Carbonaro

I refused to have bookshelves, horrified that I'd feel compelled to organise the books in some regimented system - Dewey or alphabetical or worse - and so the books lived in stacks, some as tall as me, in the most subjective order I could invent.
Thus Nabokov lived between Gogol and Hemingway, cradled between the Old World and the New; Willa Cather and Theodore Dreiser and Thomas Hardy were stacked together not for their chronological proximity but because they all reminded me in some way of dryness (though in Dreiser's case I think I was focused mainly on his name): George Eliot and Jane Austen shared a stack with Thackeray because all I had of his was Vanity Fair, and I thought that Becky Sharp would do best in the presence of ladies (and deep down I worried that if I put her next to David Copperfield, she might seduce him). — Rebecca Makkai

I act like I'm 14, if you haven't figured that out yet. — David Copperfield

If I was gay, why would I hide it? — David Copperfield

Magicians lose the opportunity to experience a sense of wonder. — David Copperfield

Where would David Copperfield be if Dickens had gone to writing classes? Probably about seventy minor characters short, is where. (Did you know that Dickens is estimated to have invented thirteen thousand characters? Thirteen thousand! The population of a small town!) — Nick Hornby

David Copperfield has no magic in him. I'm talking about Santa flying around the world in one night kind of magic. Pumpkins transformed into coaches kind of magic. — Sydney Strand

Physical rehab is often very, very hard work. — David Copperfield

When people say you can't do it - that it's impossible - never lose hope. Just because they couldn't doesn't mean you can't. — David Copperfield

If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence. — Charles Dickens

My impression is, after many years of consideration, that there never can have been anybody in the world who played worse. — Charles Dickens

Let sleeping dogs lie - who wants to rouse 'em? — David Copperfield

From the very beginning, I studied acting, directing, lighting, dance and movement. I didn't rely on just the magic to take place. It's a shame that a lot of magicians just rely on the trick itself and they have no other abilities. They get away with the wonder factor, and I don't think that's enough. It's great, but it's not enough. — David Copperfield

I was an only child. We were so poor, my parents and I had the same room. — David Copperfield

No, I think marriage is a great thing. — David Copperfield

You can feel better about yourself in a very short period of time depending on the kind of magic that you are doing. — David Copperfield

Demonic figures and occult themes have disappeared from modern magic. — David Copperfield

I discovered something amazing, which has caused a lot of controversy - the fountain of youth. I have to keep it a secret! — David Copperfield

When you're a guy and meet a girl the first time, you do whatever it takes. — David Copperfield

Magic is used in espionage, all the time, for clandestine things. I've got a whole library from a gentleman who was hired by the CIA to create magic technology for the use of anti-terrorism. — David Copperfield

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery. — Charles Dickens

Magic and new technology have always walked hand in hand - even back in the days of Robert Houdin. — David Copperfield

Magic is my paint. — David Copperfield

Blind, blind, blind . . . — Charles Dickens

I'm really trying hard not to do anything that has been done before. So knowing everything I can about the legacy of magic challenges my team and I to invent new illusions. — David Copperfield

I was on a very bumpy plane ride, an overnight flight. I was so miserable, and I pulled out 'David Copperfield,' and I forgot how scared and tired I was, and I thought, 'This is what reading should be.' I'm utterly transported out of my current situation. — Jennifer Egan

I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction! She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I dont know what she was
anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted. — David Copperfield

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. — J.D. Salinger

The real secret of magic lies in the performance. — David Copperfield

All the lawyers and the business stuff is work, but actually creating stuff isn't work. It's good effort. It's hard work. But, it's not work. It doesn't feel like work because the result is very rewarding. — David Copperfield

I brush my teeth with a Sonicare toothbrush before every show. — David Copperfield

Like David Copperfield, I was born amidst poverty and grew up in poverty. I did not own shoes. I did not bathe in water from a tap. I did no know about forks and spoons. — Sukarno

My dear Copperfield," he replied. "To a man possessed of the higher imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the amount of detail which they involve. Even in our professional correspondence," said Mr. Micawber, glancing at some letters he was writing, "the mind is not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a great pursuit! A great pursuit! — Charles Dickens

Never stop listening to your audience. — David Copperfield

I think one of the few faults in Dickens is that mostly his lead characters are blanks - who is David Copperfield, who is Oliver Twist? And yet he takes such joy in populating the rest of his novels with these fantastic, grotesque people like Pecksmith and so on. — Mark Gatiss

You find us, Copperfield,' said Mr Micawber, with one eye on Traddles, 'at present established, on what may be designated as a small and unassuming scale; but, you are aware that I have, in the course of my career, surmounted difficulties, and conquered obstacles. — Charles Dickens

But Vegas is really my first home. — David Copperfield

Magic came very easy for me when I was a kid. When I was 8 years old I started doing it, and by the time I was 12, I was already published in magic books. — David Copperfield

This is where the pivotal events of my childhood unfolded, while I ate banana and root beer Popsicles, two by two, tucking the sticks neatly under the skirt of the chair. It's where Sunnybank Lad met Lady, Ken met his friend Flicka, Atlanta burned, Manderley burned, Lassie came home, Jim ran away, Alice got small, Wilbur got big, David Copperfield was born, Beth died, and, on an endless gloomy winter afternoon, Jody shot his yearling. — Jo Ann Beard

A man's magic demonstrates what sort of person he is, what is held most deeply inside of him. There is no truer gauge of a man's character than the way in which he employs his strength, his power. I was not a murderer. I was not like Victor Sells. I was Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. I was a wizard. Wizards control their power. They don't let it control them. And wizards don't use magic to kill people. They use it to discover, to protect, to mend, to help. Not to destroy. — Jim Butcher

We all possess the need to dream. — David Copperfield

(from his random observations after reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens)
In the Old Curiosity Shop I discovered that in the character of Dick Swiveller, Dickens provided P.G. Wodehouse with pretty much the whole of his oeuvre. In David Copperfield, David's bosses Spenlow and Jorkins are what must be the earliest fictional representations of good cop/bad cop. — Nick Hornby

My uncle's house burned down when I was 6 years old. We got out safely. But ever since, I've had a nightmare of dying in a fire. — David Copperfield

David Copperfield from head to foot! Calls a house a rookery when there's not a rook near it, and takes the birds on trust, because he sees the nests! — Charles Dickens

The audiences are what keep me enthusiastic. — David Copperfield

I'm struggling with what is epic. People decided I was epic - if by epic, do you mean a big, heavy book? 'David Copperfield' is a big book - is it epic? Amount of time covered, length, drama, or story - that's the real appeal - if the story is long you have a better chance of becoming more connected. — Patrick Rothfuss

There is a safe spot within every tornado. My job is to find it. — David Copperfield

True enough," said Mrs. Copperfield, bringing her fist down on the table and looking very mean. "I have gone to pieces, which is a thing I've wanted to do for years. I know I am as guilty as I can be, but I have my happiness, which I guard like a wolf, and I have authority now and a certain amount of daring, which, if you remember correctly, I never had before. — Jane Bowles

My job is to make people dream. Of course, there's a lot of technical stuff behind the scenes and a lot of hard work behind it, but I get to watch people see the result of that hard work and feel that wonder and feel that discovery, all the time. — David Copperfield

Before there can be wonders, there must be wonder. — David Copperfield

But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield — Charles Dickens

I discovered Musha Cay and the islands around it in the Exumas. — David Copperfield

The most important thing is presentation. — David Copperfield

I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story.' (David Copperfield)
But all that night he lay awake because the phantoms of those days were not gone. Like the tiny, terrible holes in the prophylactics, the phantoms of those days were not easy to detect - and their meaning was unknown - but they were there. — John Irving

Now there was no wonder in the Statue of Liberty illusion because he, Copperfield, attempted to do something so large that it stretched the credibility of the audience to the point where most people didn't believe any of it anymore. — Doug Henning

In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts. You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great? — Kanye West

But when I go off stage I don't have a deck of cards with me all the time. — David Copperfield

My show is constantly evolving ... new tricks are added, old ones are dropped ... so it stays fresh. But it's the randomly selected participants from the audience that make it fresh and provide some of the best comic relief. — David Copperfield

Normally, I do magic on the stage. But I can make magic credible and resonate through a TV screen. — David Copperfield

Would you like to be taught Latin?' I said briskly. 'I will teach it to you with pleasure as I learn it.'
'Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,' he answered, shaking his head. 'I am sure it's very kind of you to make the offer, but I am much too umble to accept it.'
'What nonsense, Uriah!'
'Oh, indeed you must excuse me, Master Copperfield! I am greatly obliged, and I should like it of all things, I assure you; but I am far too umble. There are people enough to tread upon me in my lowly state without my doing outrage to their feelings by possessing learning. Learning ain't for me. A person like myself had better not aspire. If he is to get on in life, he must get on umbly, Master Copperfield. — Charles Dickens

Marriage is like a formality for me. — David Copperfield

My dreams are my dress rehearsals for my future. — David Copperfield

If I had auditioned for 'Merlin' on magic alone, I don't think I'd have got it. Like any kid, I probably had a magic kit, but it's not something I ever pursued. I've never watched a magic show like David Copperfield or used him to base my character on, but I really like David Blaine and Darren Brown. They are doing wonders. — Colin Morgan

And those characters [in a fairy tale] dwell in a moral world, whose laws are as clear as the law of gravity. That too is a great advantage of the folk tale. It is not a failure of imagination to see the sky blue. It is a failure rather to be weary of its being blue- and not to notice how blue it is. And appreciation of the subtler colors of the sky will come later. In the folk tale, good is good and evil is evil, and the former will triumph and later will fail. This is not the result of the imaginative quest. It is rather its principle and foundation. It is what will enable the child later on to understand Macbeth, or Don Quixote, or David Copperfield. — Anthony Esolen

Why a widow should raise an attractive or pathetic image in one's mind, or at the worst something rather bold and dashing, while widower seemed to have a vague connection with the word mother-in-law cannot be explained. Brightness falls from even Clive Newcome when we have to envisage him as a young widower in mourning. As for David Copperfield, his creator most wisely sent him abroad almost at once, and while he was still in England surrounded him with events so overwhelming that we never have time to think of his widowerhood. She — Angela Thirkell

Near the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on my back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation for it. — Charles Dickens

For me to grow, I have to know about the foundation that came before. — David Copperfield

Magic is the only profession where it's easy to lie about your talent. If you do a trick and you can learn it very quickly, you can fool somebody into thinking you're a great magician. — David Copperfield

What I've tried to do in my stage magic is to take a trick and give it an emotional hook. — David Copperfield

I try to help people realize their dreams by using magic to tell stories that educate, move, and inspire. — David Copperfield

Magic has been something I've been really good at since I was really young. The ability has always come easy to me, I'm not sure why. — David Copperfield

You have to learn certain skills to present magic. — David Copperfield

It's okay for me to be gay, but God didn't make me that way. — David Copperfield

I really did sneak into Broadway shows, starting when I was 12. — David Copperfield

I have always been interested in pushing magic forward. — David Copperfield

Has that Copperfield no tague! I would do a good deal for you, if you tell me, without lying that somebody had cut it out — Charles Dickens

Dreams are illusions, and we can't let go of them because we would be dead. — David Copperfield

The audience likes to be taken on new journeys. — David Copperfield

On his bedside table, between the reading lamp and the telephone, was his battered copy of David Copperfield. Homer didn't have to open the book to know how the story began. "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show," he recited from memory. — John Irving

The truth is, I hate not being the first person narrator all the way through! To paraphrase David Copperfield, I don't know whether I'm the hero or the victim of this tale. But either way, shouldn't I dominate it? — Anne Rice