tricks Quotes

“Volunteers from the audience sometimes participate in preparation. As the trick is being setup, the magician will make use of every possible use of misdirection.”

“The third stage is sometimes called the effect, or the prestige, and this is the product of magic. If a rabbit is pulled from a hat, the rabbit, which apparently did not exist before the trick was performed, can be said to be the prestige of that trick.”

“You really didn’t see the sadness or the longing unless you already knew it was there. But that was the trick, wasn’t it? Everyone had their disappointment and their baggage; only, some people carried it in their inside pockets and not on their backs.”

“The trick to happiness wasn’t in freezing every momentary pleasure and clinging to each one, but in ensuring one’s life would produce many future moments to anticipate.”

“In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?”

“My passion is equal to the task.”

“O, death’s a great disguiser, and you may add to it. Shave the head, and tie the beard, and say it was the desire of the penitent to be so bared before his death. You know the course is common.”

″ Look, sir. Look, sir. Mr. Knox, sir. Let’s do tricks with bricks and blocks, sir. Let’s do tricks with chicks and clocks, sir.”

“I don’t like this trick, sir. My tongue isn’t quick quick or slick, sir. I get all those ticks and clocks, sir, mixed up with chicks and tocks, sir. I can’t do it, Mr. Fox, sir. ”

“Mr. Fox, sir. I won’t do it. I can’t say it. I won’t chew it.”

“You see? Everyone is afraid of me! But now my tummy’s beginning to rumble, and my favorite food is- gruffalo crumble!”

“Don’t call me good! I’m the scariest creature in this wood. Just walk behind me and soon you’ll see, everyone is afraid of me.”

“Doesn’t he know? There’s no such thing as a gruffalo!”

“His eyes are orange. His tongue is black. He has prickles all over his back.”

“The dragon took another huge breath, but this time nothing came out. The dragon didn’t even have enough fire left to cook a meatball.”

“Don’t you talk to that cat. That cat is a bad one, That Cat in the Hat. He plays lots of bad tricks. Don’t you let him come near. You know what he did the last time he was here. ”

“Cat! You get out! There is work to be done. I have no time for tricks. I must go back and dig. I can’t have you here eating cake like a pig! You get out of this house! We don’t want you about!”

“Dragon took another huge breath and breathed out so much fire he burnt up one hundred forests.”

“He was tired when he got back, but Elizabeth shouted, ‘Fantastic, do it again!’ So the dragon jumped up and flew around the whole world in just twenty seconds. ”

“Elizabeth walked right over the dragon and opened the door to the cave.”

″‘You ruined everything!’ Sayle howled. ‘How did you do it? How did you trick me? I’d have beaten you if you’d been a man!‘”

“I got word of a bird that does something that’s almost unheard of! It’s hard to believe but this bird called the Pelf lays eggs that are three times as big as herself! How that Pelf ever learned such a difficult trick I never found out. But I found that egg quick. And I managed to get it down out of the nest and home to the kitchen along with the rest.”

″‘Give me the herbs for the omelette. Be sharp!’ He was rather abrupt. Jemima Puddle-duck had never heard him speak like that. She felt surprised, and uncomfortable.”

“He said he loved eggs and ducklings; he should be proud to see a fine nestful in his wood-shed.”

“Jemima Puddle-Duck was a simpleton: not even the mention of sage and onions made her suspicious.”

″‘Po Po, Po Po, I have a plan. At the door there is a big basket. Behind it is a rope. Tie the rope to the basket, sit in the basket and throw the other end to me. I can pull you up.‘”

“A trick that everyone abhors In Little Girls is slamming Doors A Wealthy Banker’s Little Daughter Who lived in Palace Green, Bayswater (By name Rebecca Offendort) Was given to this Furious Sport.”

“They had blown on the signpost and set it spinning so that when it stopped it pointed in wrong directions. They had sent their servants to trick him into a false sense of safety. The trick had failed.”

“The Enormous Crocodile found a large piece of wood and placed it in the middle of the playground. Then he lay across the piece of wood and tucked in his feet so that he looked almost exactly like a seesaw.”

″ I have secret plans and clever tricks”

“He picked a lovely bunch of flowers and arranged it on one of the tables. From the same table, he took away one of the benches and hid it in the bushes. Then he put himself in the place where the bench had been. ”

“When no one was looking, he crept up onto the merry-go-round and put himself between a wooden lion and a fearsome dragon. He sat up a bit on his back legs and he kept very still. He looked exactly like a wooden crocodile on the merry-go-round. ”

“That evening Mr. and Mrs. Grinling decided on a plan to baffle the seagulls. ‘Tomorrow I shall tie the napkin to the basket,’ said Mrs. Grinling.”

″‘Proud? Proud indeed!’ I recoiled from the venom of her attack. ‘It is a trick! This thing beauty they talk about. Believe me, it is a low trick put out by God self.’ Her face was flushed with anger. ‘He puts meaning into beauty, and reduces the meaning to nothing.‘”

“I ought to tell you at the beginning that I am not quite normal, having had a violent experience at the age of nine. I will make this clear at once because I have noticed that if things seep out slowly through a book the reader is apt to feel let down or tricked in some way when he eventually gets the point.”

“Now, freight cars are silly and noisy. They talk a lot and don’t attend to what they are doing. They don’t listen to their engine, and when he stops, they bump into each other, screaming, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Whatever is happening?’ And, I’m sorry to say, they play tricks on an engine who is not used to them.”

“Thomas was a cheeky little engine, too. He thought no engine worked as hard as he did. So he used to play tricks on them. He liked best of all to come quietly beside a big engine dozing on the siding and make him jump.”

“Love? I don’t know what love is. It’s a con trick to keep the human race going, that’s all it is.”

“A boy was the accident of a moment, something as light and brief as a sun-glint on water- but a good trick was something to chuckle over for a hundred years.”

“At some point we must stop: 1. Replaying what happened over and over. 2. Taking what was actually terrible in the past and tricking ourselves into thinking it was better than it was. 3. Imagining the ways things should be so much that we can’t acknowledge what is.”

“Every morning the birds sing, and the Owl flies back to his dark hole. When the birds see him, they mob him, remembering his trick. He dare only come out at night, to scrape a bare living on rats, mice and beetles.”

“He jumped into the bathtub and sat up begging, with the scrubbing brush in his mouth, a trick he certainly had never done before.”

“It’s a trick! It’s a trick! There’s an invasion and it must be after our dragon. Kill it! Kill it!”

“How can I get there first and gobble her up and get all dressed up to trick you into believing I am her if we’ve got a great train journey to do?”

“Never again did he tease any little cat. He saved his rough tricks for the cats as big as he was. As for the little cats, he tried not to tease them but to please them. This was the beginning of his education.”