Apollo Robbins

“I can analyze how I do things, but the actual doing it - when the synapses just start firing - I can't explain.”

“Too often, we take our construct of reality as an absolute, and what I'm trying to point out for most people is it's important for us to know what we don't know.”

“Normally, when I'm not performing or stealing, I second-guess myself; I have doubts.”

“I've taken a tenacious bulldog approach to learning new skills throughout my life.”

“When I shake someone's hand, I apply the lightest pressure on their wrist with my index and middle fingers and lead them across my body to my left. The cross-body lead is actually a move from salsa dancing. I'm finding out what kind of a partner they're going to be, and I know that if they follow my lead, I can do whatever I want with them.”

“I think that's kind of my forte is that I tell people beforehand that I'm going to steal from them. And a lot of people think that that makes them safe, and hopefully I wake them up a little bit.”

“A lot of magic is designed to appeal to people visually, but what I'm trying to affect is their minds, their moods, their perceptions.”

“Think about it this way - if you have five senses, and they're all feeding into one place, kind of like a bottleneck, then now your mind has to make decisions of what is important and what is going to be above the radar and what's going to be below the radar.”

“In the same way that a film director would use a film lens to blur out a certain item or use a spotlight, I use certain movements that draw the eye instinctually.”

“I was at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, and I was performing at a show there. Jimmy Carter was going to be coming through with his Secret Service detail. The manager pulled me aside, and they didn't want me to shake Jimmy Carter's hand because they were afraid it would make the news if I stole from him.”

“We always think of misdirection as, 'Look over here while I do this over here!' And that's not what it is. You can be looking straight at it, and if you're not thinking about it, you won't process it. I find that fascinating.”