- Ricky Jay: There are probably more books written about magic than any other art form, literally thousands and thousands of books, and I've collected thousands of books in my life about magic technique. But I believe that the real key to learning is personally. It's almost like the sensei - master relationship in the martial arts -- that the way you want to learn is by someone that you respect showing you something. There's a level of transmission... and a level of appreciation that's never completely attainable just through the written word.
- Ricky Jay: There's a thing about holding cards in one's hand that's amazing. It becomes a meditative tool, just sitting there and shuffling cards for hours, and thinking about them. It's almost infinite what one can do with them.
- Ricky Jay: Practice, to me, was never anything but pleasure. It's what I like doing. If I'm frazzled, the nicest thing to calm me down... is probably to put a deck of cards in my hand... and let me sit down for a few hours.
- Ricky Jay: People frequently talk about how much more difficult it is to cheat in a card game.. than to perform a good sleight of hand. But if you think about it, what makes magic different... is that it's inherently honest. That's the major difference... between deception as crime and deception as performance. In the performance of magic, in sleight of hand, you tell someone you''re gonna deceive them before you deceive them.
- Ricky Jay: Cards are like living, breathing human beings. I suppose because they give you real pleasure. You sit in a room with them 10 or 15 hours a day, and they become your friends, particularly very lonely people.