Criss Angel

“Pain is a beautiful thing. When you feel pain, you know you're alive.”

“I wish what I do was all real. Some of it's real, some of it's an illusion and I try to blur the line between both, but unfortunately I've got to be honest with you. Taking a $1 bill and turning it into a $100 - unfortunately it's not real.”

“I came up with the term 'mindfreak' because I didn't like the word 'magician.' I felt like I wanted to coin a term that would be basically the reaction to my art. It would be a mindfreak and so that's why I came up with that. But, many people say I'm really a student of humanity and psychology.”

“I think that the problem is that people fear so many things and they don't live life to its fullest. And for me as an artist, if God should want me to come this Wednesday to the end of my life, so be it.”

“I am a street performer as much as I am a stage performer. Yes, I have a television show, but every trick, every 'Mindfreak' you see, I can do live.”

“I love the press; I even like the people that don't like me. If it wasn't for those people, no one would know who I was and I wouldn't have a gig.”

“I have mentally overcome situations most of you would be terrified to ever attempt: heights, fire, needles, spiders, snakes, angry monkeys, being shot, being hit by a car, going blind - you name it, I have been in a situation where I have had to mentally overcome my inherent fears to do my job.”

“A lot of the demonstrations that I do, when I get inside people's minds, is understanding human behavior and understanding how people think and getting their patterns down so I know how to create the illusion that I get inside their brain.”

“Magic speaks to the child in all of us. No matter how sophisticated we become, there's still a part of us who wants to believe in an alternative reality, where we can defy the laws of nature.”

“I'm just a human being that is in touch with myself. And I'm honest with myself. And I really, at the end of the day, don't care what people say. I never cared about what people say.”

“Magic is the oldest part of the show business profession. It can now be used as a forward-thinking tool to build a child's confidence. It has been an amazing part in many entertainers' lives, including Steve Martin and the late Johnny Carson.”

“I've never formally trained for pain management, but I have a good understanding of how to conquer it. I just analyze the pain, feel it in the moment, and then mentally become numb to it.”

“I've never, ever had any therapy. Some might say I need it, but I've never seen a shrink or a psychologist or anything like that.”

“If we all looked out for each other a little bit more, I think we wouldn't have a lot of the crisis that we have in today's society.”

“Indeed, most magicians catch the bug as kids. My first audience was my family in Long Island. My first 'assistant' was my mother, whom I levitated on a broom in our living room.”

“You can't please everyone, and trying to is the kiss of death. I don't care about Wayne Newton's demographics. When I do, I'll know that it's time to quit.”

“I had an amazing childhood, lots of love. But my dad worked his tail off, getting up at 4 in the morning and going off at 5, 6 o'clock, yet he always had time to spend with his kids and his wife.”

“I have real TV studios. If I have an idea, I can go shoot it. I can experiment. If I choose to air it or not, it's at my discretion. I don't have to do it to somebody else's time frame.”

“The first time I thought about attempting a body suspension was after watching a documentary on rites-of-passage ceremonies from other cultures. I was completely intrigued by what these people put their bodies through.”

“Well I think everything up to this point that I've been exposed to in my life has had an influence on me in some way, shape, or form even if I'm not conscious of it. So I definitely think that my studies in wu-shu, kung-fu, karate, kenpo, taikwando, all of that stuff certainly has an affect. I don't think I follow any discipline traditionally.”