Magician Hat Quotes

As I look out at all of you gathered here, I want to say that I don't see a room full of Parisians in top hats and diamonds and silk dresses. I don't see bankers and housewives and store clerks. No. I address you all tonight as you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.

A lot of people experience the world with the same incredulity as when a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat.…We know that the world is not all sleight of hand and deception because we are in it, we are part of it. Actually we are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat. The only difference beween us and the white rabbit is that the rabbit does not realize it is taking part in a magic trick.

The memory of my father is wrapped up in white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day of work. Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits out of his hat, he drew love from his small body.

Like a stage magician, the con artist misdirects suspicion. While everyone’s watching for him to pull a rabbit out of a hat, he’s actually sawing a girl in half. You think he’s doing one trick when he’s actually doing another. You think that I’m dying, but I’m laughing at you.

Now…I live and breathe weirdness. It goes with the territory when you’re a demigod. But there are still moments when I do a mental double take: like when I’m flying upward inside a giant glowing vulture, flapping my arms to control make-believe wings, holding an almost-immortal magician in my talons…all so I can steal his hat.

A writer’s brain is like a magician’s hat. If you’re going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first

An illusion has three stages. "First there is the setup, in which the nature of what might be attempted at is hinted at, or suggested, or explained. The apparatus is seen. 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 performance is where the magician's lifetime of practice, and his innate skill as a performer, cojoin to produce the magical display. "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.

Time was a dazzling lie, a magician worth a bird in his hat. The truth, I felt certain, was that everything happened at once. How old was I? I was every age at the same time. All the days of our lives were today.

When you go through the moments where you are questioning yourself whether or not it was abuse, remember the way it made you feel. Push away the nostalgia that is trying to minimize it, trying to trick you like a bad magician at a children’s party that the rabbit did come from the hat, that love and abuse come from the same hat.

the more apparatus a magician carries about with him — coloured powders, stuffed cats, magical hats and so forth — the greater the fraud you will eventually discover him to be!

Gunfire doesn’t startle real Texans, particularly those from rural towns. Miranda’s children mastered pistols, shotguns, and rifles like magicians master top hats, rabbits, and playing cards. Texas bravado aside, however, fully automatic gunfire wasn’t kosher. Not even close. Mirandites cowered at the ominous sounds of hoodlums firing M-16s and AK-47s from train cars barreling through the town’s arteries on largely secluded tracks. 

There comes a point in every man’s life when he sees that the magician’s hat is empty, that the government and the church are run by fools, and that virtue is far rarer than he’d been led to believe.

As I look out at you all gathered here I want to say that I don't see a room full of Parisians in top hats and diamonds and silk dresses. I don't see bankers and housewives and store clerks. No. I address you all tonight as you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventures, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.

Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat.

Knock it off, you two.’ Annabeth handed her scroll to Sadie. ‘Carter, let’s trade. I’ll try your khopesh ; you try my Yankees cap.’ She tossed him the hat. ‘I’m usually more of a basketball guy, but …’ Carter put on the cap and disappeared. ‘Wow, okay. I’m invisible, aren’t I?’ Sadie applauded. ‘You’ve never looked better, brother dear.’ ‘Very funny.’ ‘If you can sneak up on Setne,’ Annabeth suggested, ‘you might be able to take him by surprise, get the crown away from him.’ ‘But you told us Setne saw right through your invisibility,’ Carter said. ‘That was me ,’ Annabeth said, ‘a Greek using a Greek magic item. For you, maybe it’ll work better – or differently, at least.’ ‘Carter, give it a shot,’ I said. ‘The only thing better than a giant chicken man is a giant invisible chicken man.

the more apparatus a magician carries about with him – coloured powders, stuffed cats, magical hats and so forth – the greater the fraud you will eventually discover him to be!” And what, inquired Mr Horrocks politely, were the few tools that a magician did require? “Why! Nothing really,” said Mr Norrell. “Nothing but a silver basin for seeing visions in.

Whoever said, Eyes are windows of the soul , didn't know what he was talking about. Eyes are curtains that prevent you from seeing. They're rabbits that climb out of a magician's hat. Eyes are the last thing you see smiling before a bullet slams into your midsection.

A writer's brain is like a magician's hat. if you're going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in first. - Louis L'Amour

Words are man's first and most grandiose invention. With language he created a whole new universe; what wonder if he loved words and attributed power to them! With fitted, harmonious words the magicians summoned rabbits out of empty hats and spirits from the elements. Their descendants, the literary men, still go on with the process, morticing their verbal formulas together, and, before the power of the finished spell, trembling with delight and awe. Rabbits out of empty hats? No, their spells are more subtly powerful, for they evoke emotions out of empty minds

I can even see that little flourish he often does with his hand. The one that looks like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, only the rabbit is your dignity and the hat is him slowly strangling it to death in front of you. Certainly

Kaylee, For over a hundred years, magicians have been pulling objects out of hats. Rabbits, flowers... It's become such a famous trick that rabbits are known to represent magic in general. I'm a magician. I've been pulling things from hats since I learned the trick at ten years old. It's all about sleight of hand. Misdirection. Distraction. What people don't really know is it isn't the magician that makes the trick magical. It's the object. What is a zig-zag box without the blades? What is a cage without a dove? The object is the spark--the real reason why the illusion is worth seeing, worth doing, worth discovering. Sometimes magicians lose their rabbits. They get lost in the act, or the magician makes a mistake and has to coax the rabbit back out. Because without the rabbit, the trick is useless. Without the rabbit, the hat becomes insignificant. Kaylee Elizabeth Sperling, you are the rabbit to my hat, and I love you. Please forgive me for losing the spark in your trick. I will do whatever I can to make it up to you, starting with this deck of cards. 52 reasons why I love you. And I could fill another deck. Perhaps two more or three. Whatever it takes to coax my rabbit back out. -Nate

A magician creates magic and mesmerizes the audience. But it is a pantomime, and the audience knows that it’s a ruse. It’s in the name: a “magic trick”. They play along when the magician tugs his sleeves to show there is nothing hidden within them, or that the top hat is empty of a rabbit, or eggs, or flowers. Beneath the façade there is only sleight of hand, wires and contraptions, misdirection at a key moment. “But what the audience does not realize is that it’s not always trickery. Or at least, not quite.

...it seems to me that sometimes-or perhaps I might venture most of the time-occurrences have no cause at all. New stars appear and old ones vanish. Short hats become popular again. Things are as they are and do as they please for absolutely no reason at all.

Now, personally, I’m not fond of huge snakes, especially ones with human heads and stupid hats. If I’d summoned this thing, I would’ve cast a spell to send it back, super quick. But Setne just rolled up his scroll, slipped it in his jacket pocket, and grinned. “Awesome!” The cobra lady hissed. “Who dares summon me? I am Wadjet, queen of cobras, protector of Lower Egypt, eternal mistress of—” “I know!” Setne clapped his hands. “I’m a huge fan!” I

reached up and cupped his hairy cheek. “You’re a magician’s hat, Isaac Winshed. I never know what the rabbit’s going to pull out of you next.

A brick could be used in the same manner as a magician’s hat could be used as a basketball. I’m not suggesting a brick replace a basketball, because that’d be silly. But not as silly as the idea of paying people millions of dollars to put a rubber ball in a rim, while engineers, inventors, teachers, you know, productive people, limp along financially.


This was why love was so dangerous. Love turned the world into a garden, so beguiling it was easy to forget that rose petals sails appeared charmed. They blazed red in the day and silver at night, like a magician’s cloak, hinting at mysteries concealed beneath, which Tella planned to uncover that night. Drunken laughter floated above her as Tella delved deeper into the ship’s underbelly in search of Nigel the Fortune-teller. Her first evening on the vessel she’d made the mistake of sleeping, not realizing until the following day that Legend’s performers had switched their waking hours to prepare for the next Caraval. They slumbered in the day and woke after sunset. All Tella had learned her first day aboard La Esmeralda was that Nigel was on the ship, but she had yet to actually see him. The creaking halls beneath decks were like the bridges of Caraval, leading different places at different hours and making it difficult to know who stayed in which room. Tella wondered if Legend had designed it that way, or if it was just the unpredictable nature of magic. She imagined Legend in his top hat, laughing at the question and at the idea that magic had more control than he did. For many, Legend was the definition of magic. When she had first arrived on Isla de los Sueños, Tella suspected everyone could be Legend. Julian had so many secrets that she’d questioned if Legend’s identity was one of them, up until he’d briefly died. Caspar, with his sparkling eyes and rich laugh, had played the role of Legend in the last game, and at times he’d been so convincing Tella wondered if he was actually acting. At first sight, Dante, who was almost too beautiful to be real, looked like the Legend she’d always imagined. Tella could picture Dante’s wide shoulders filling out a black tailcoat while a velvet top hat shadowed his head. But the more Tella thought about Legend, the more she wondered if he even ever wore a top hat. If maybe the symbol was another thing to throw people off. Perhaps Legend was more magic than man and Tella had never met him in the flesh at all. The boat rocked and an actual laugh pierced the quiet. Tella froze. The laughter ceased but the air in the thin corridor shifted. What had smelled of salt and wood and damp turned thick and velvet-sweet. The scent of roses. Tella’s skin prickled; gooseflesh rose on her bare arms. At her feet a puddle of petals formed a seductive trail of red. Tella might not have known Legend’s true name, but she knew he favored red and roses and games. Was this his way of toying with her? Did he know what she was up to? The bumps on her arms crawled up to her neck and into her scalp as her newest pair of slippers crushed the tender petals. If Legend knew what she was after, Tella couldn’t imagine he would guide her in the correct direction, and yet the trail of petals was too tempting to avoid. They led to a door that glowed copper around the edges. She turned the knob. And her world transformed into a garden, a paradise made of blossoming flowers and bewitching romance. The walls were formed of moonlight. The ceiling was made of roses that dripped down toward the table in the center of the room, covered with plates of cakes and candlelight and sparkling honey wine. But none of it was for Tella. It was all for Scarlett. Tella had stumbled into her sister’s love story and it was so romantic it was painful to watch. Scarlett stood across the chamber. Her full ruby gown bloomed brighter than any flowers, and her glowing skin rivaled the moon as she gazed up at Julian. They touched nothing except each other. While Scarlett pressed her lips to Julian’s, his arms wrapped around her as if he’d found the one thing he never wanted to let go of. This was why love was so dangerous. Love turned the world into a garden, so beguiling it was easy to forget that rose petals were as ephemeral as feelings, eventually they would wilt and die, leaving nothing but the thorns.

Most people associate the word abracadabra with magicians pulling rabbits out of hats. It’s actually an Aramaic term that translates into English as, “I will create as I speak.” It’s a powerful concept. It’s why Edison often announced the invention of a device before he’d actually invented it. It’s why Jim Carrey wrote himself a check for $10 million long before he ever made a movie. This principle simply says, “Whatever you focus on expands,” and in the experiment you’ll learn that there’s no such thing as an idle thought and that all of us are way too cavalier and tolerant of our minds’ wandering.

The Abracadabra Principle. Most people associate the word abracadabra with magicians pulling rabbits out of hats. It’s actually an Aramaic term that translates into English as, “I will create as I speak.” It’s a powerful concept. It’s why Edison often announced the invention of a device before he’d actually invented it. It’s why Jim Carrey wrote himself a check for $10 million long before he ever made a movie. This principle simply says, “Whatever you focus on expands,” and in the experiment you’ll learn that there’s no such thing as an idle thought and that all of us are way too cavalier and tolerant of our minds’ wandering.

Drelmere and sons, fine outfitters for the discerning magician!” he was shouting, his voice barely carrying over the hubbub. “Robes! Pointy hats! Beard grooming supplies! Yes, you sir, how can OH GOD HURRAAARRGLAB.” I waited patiently for him to finish decorating the pavement with his stomach contents. “Sorry,” he said, bent double and gulping. Impressively, he immediately continued his sales pitch from that position. “Looking for a new robe?” “Yes, this one’s starting to whiff a bit.” “Yes, I . . . gathered that, sir.” He took a few deep, groaning breaths into a star-patterned hanky and seemed to gather himself. “What sort of price range were you OH GOD YOUR EYES HURRAAARRGLAB.” I tapped my now bile-sodden foot. “Shall I come back later?

The early magicians, to my thinking, must have been people who knew the symbols and stories of the societies next door. Ones who understood that the Pharaoh's got different gods from the Greeks, and they've got different gods from the Wildmen in the North with the pointy horned hats. The folks who might come and say your neighbors have better gods than yours, and their rituals are more fun and their temples are better. Or even worse, they might get you thinking about how strange it is that you both have gods for the sun even though there's only one sun. Maybe that means the symbol is more powerful than the god. The magicians are the ones who keep that secret knowledge. That occult knowledge. The understanding that the symbols run the show.

The life of the grownups had caught me, at first by a lock of hair or a finger, but soon it would have caught and bound me completely, the life lived according to goals, according to numbers, the life of order and jobs, or professions and examinations; soon the hour would strike for me too, soon I would be undergraduate, graduate student, minister, professor, would pay calls with a high hat and leather gloves to go with it, would no longer understand children, would perhaps envy them. But actually in my heart I didn't want any of this, I did not want to leave my world where things were good and precious. There was, to be sure, a completely secret goal for me when I thought about the future. The one thing I ardently wished for was to become a magician.

With language he created a whole new universe; what wonder if he loved words and attributed power to them! With fitted, harmonious words the magicians summoned rabbits out of empty hats and spirits from the elements. Their descendants, the literary men, still go on with the process, morticing their verbal formulas together, and, before the power of the finished spell, trembling with delight and awe. Rabbits out of empty hats? No, their spells are more subtly powerful, for they evoke emotions out of empty minds. Formulated by their art the most insipid statements become enormously significant. For example, I proffer the constatation, 'Black ladders lack bladders.' A self-evident truth, one on which it would not have been worth while to insist, had I chosen to formulate it in such words as 'Black fire-escapes have no bladders,' or, 'Les echelles noires manquent de vessie.' But since I put it as I do, 'Black ladders lack bladders,' it becomes, for all its self-evidence, significant, unforgettable, moving. The creation by word-power of something out of nothing—what is that but magic? And, I may add, what is that but literature? Half the world's greatest poetry is simply 'Les echelles noires manquent de vessie,' translated into magic significance as, 'Black ladders lack bladders.' And you can't appreciate words. I'm sorry for you.

Being a cab river is not unlike being a magician--minus the top hat, the cape, the rabbit, an the gorgeous assistant. But you do have an audience.

That's the test for the literary mind," said Denis; "the feeling of magic, the sense that words have power. The technical, verbal part of literature is simply a development of magic. Words are man's first and most grandiose invention. With language he created a whole new universe; what wonder if he loved words and attributed power to them! With fitted, harmonious words the magicians summoned rabbits out of empty hats and spirits from the elements. Their descendants, the literary men, still go on with the process, morticing their verbal formulas together, and, before the power of the finished spell, trembling with delight and awe. Rabbits out of empty hats? No, their spells are more subtly powerful, for they evoke emotions out of empty minds. Formulated by their art the most insipid statements become enormously significant.

Fancy...means seeing beyond what's really there...turning one thing into another...letting ideas grow and change. A person with the gift of fancy has a mind like a magician's hat. He reaches in, and out come rabbits and milkshakes and peacock feathers and anything else he wishes. Maybe—at first—he gets some things he doesn't want, like snakes and dots. But with patience—and practice—surprising and wonderful things come out every time.

However, the spooky boys of the super secret Technical Laboratory failed to impress me. I possessed a vast library on the various facades of technical intelligence. I was amused to see the rudimentary wireless sets (some manufactured by the IB technicians at mount joy), clandestine cameras, miniature radio transmitters and a few bugging tools flaunted by the so-called experts as the main tools of technical intelligence. These gadgets were shown to us like the magicians pulling out an occasional rabbit from their hats. I don’t think anyone emerged out of the classrooms much wiser about the application of electronic gadgets for generating intelligence

But let’s pause for a minute and look at this fine Latin word cura. The most ancient words in our language are like haunted houses. Try as the owner might to avoid going up to the attic (or down to the basement), to keep that one door shut and the lights on at night, the whispers of the previous occupants slip through the walls; no number of lamps can dispel their shadows. Or else they’re like magicians’ hats: Take it off, nothing. Put it back on, remove it again, and voilà!, a dove flies out with its characteristic flutter. Cura, as we’ve seen, doesn’t quite mean in Latin what “cure” tends to mean today in English—that is, “remedy,” especially in the medical sense. Cura instead means “preoccupation,” “mental fixation,” “anguish,” “obsession.” Even “remorse” or “regret.” In Virgil’s portrayal of the afterlife we encounter a personification of the word, along with personifications of other discomforts such as hunger and poverty (Aeneid, VI.274).

But I’ve watched you disappear inside a book like a rabbit inside a magician’s hat, and I’ve learned to accept that sometimes you are a bit self-involved don’t resurface for days.

People with high moral authority are dangerous," Jennie said into my ear, her words like silk spilling out of a magician's hat. "Their egos depend on their ability to see themselves as moral, so they become dictators just as quickly as they become leaders.

Frank had never particularly prized kindness in people. His mother hadn't taught him to, he supposed. He'd always been drawn to characters, people with talent or ambition or a taste for fun. The kind of people who, like Frank, tended to put themselves first. Even with Cleo it was her intelligence and sexual charge he'd been drawn to; he'd never once considered whether she was a good person. Now, watching her pull scarves from her bag like a magician flourishing handkerchiefs from a hat, he realized he'd been wrong. Fun was fine when you were young, but as you got older it was kindness that counted, kindness that showed up.

And everywhere you looked there were throngs of book characters, dressed in clothes from every era imaginable: a man in a toga surrounded by a gaggle of girls in dresses with enormous crinolines and ruffs, soldiers marching past them with laser guns, magicians in colorful hats, businesswomen in court shoes and trouser suits, orcs with grotesque misshapen faces. Fairies with dragonfly wings buzzed in and out of the crowd. A goose with a tiny boy riding on its back pecked at the instant happy endings, and was shooed away loudly by the fat lady. Then I spotted a tomcat wearing a pair of riding boots and walking on its hind legs, and followed it through the crowd until it disappeared into a pub called the Inkpot. Not really fancying the "ink cocktail" being advertised on a board outside, I decided to keep walking.

What had he witnessed? She had looked like a wild and beautiful creature, a goddess, something ethereal and undecipherable. Dina had filled his vision, the pale light dancing around her, as she'd broken his world, and everything he thought he knew, apart. He was ninety percent sure that Dina was a witch. The other ten percent... well. He was flirting with the idea that she might be some kind of djinn, or succubus, but neither of those terms felt quite right. And "magician" made him think of rabbits in hats and coins collected from behind ears. No, if there was ever a word to describe Dina Whitlock, it was "witch.

In vain I warned other Arab leaders, those pleasure-seeking gluttons who only listen to the fawning and simpering of those who owe them favors. There was a full complement of them at Cairo, lined up like onions, spying on each other on the sly, half of them so conceited they could not stop behaving like constipated patriarchs, the other half too thick to be able to look serious. Arrivistes who thought they had really arrived, comic-opera presidents unable to shake off their country-bumpkin reflexes, petrodollar emirs looking like rabbits straight out of the magician's hat, sultans wrapped in their robes like ghosts, disgusted at the blathering eulogies the speakers were trotting out ad infinitum. Why were they there? They cared for nothing that did not concern their personal fortunes. Busy stuffing their pockets, they refused to look up to see how dizzyingly fast the world was changing or how tomorrow's storm clouds of hate were gathering on the horizon.

Nelson Knutson?” I nodded. “What kind of name is that? It sounds like something a magician would say . . . you know, like abracadabra.” “It does?” “Yeah. You know, I’m waving my magic wand and . . . Nelson Knutson! . . . there’s a rabbit in my hat!

A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.

Perhaps that is part of Magritte’s point. We exist, and then we don’t. The world will be there when we are gone. The dull factuality of physical things does not need human perception to make it persist. Thinking about this through Magritte’s eyes becomes terrifying: that when you leave your home and lock the door all the objects in it still exist, unconscious as they are, without any need to be known, to be seen, by a conscious human. That’s one eerie way of looking at it, but there is no easy way to “decode” a Magritte painting. His art placidly and calmly asks terrifying questions about the solid things we take for granted. You know nothing, smiles the bowler-hatted magician, as he pulls away the rug from under your feet to reveal there’s no floor, either. And that’s not even a pipe you’re holding in your hand. "This is not an article: why René Magritte is a timeless genius

Finn repeated Aric’s words, then looked shocked when more mysterious commands followed. His breath blurred as he spoke his Magician’s language. Finn’s body quaked; the falcon fluttered. The little hairs on my nape rose. Something was happening. Magic seemed to swirl all around us. Joules and Gabriel shared a look. They’d felt it too. After another minute or two of speaking, Finn paused. “I feel like I completed a spell, or something. Could be that a white rabbit’s appearing in a black hat somewhere on earth.” With a grimace, he added, “But whatever spell I worked, I’m definitely fueling it.

sounded calm when she answered the phone. Which meant that Jody had probably left. They had begun the day with the two women arguing about whose phone the government had legal and moral authority to tap. Pearl and her daughter could discuss such subjects until they were all talked out and Quinn had long since fled to wherever it might be legal and moral to smoke a cigar. “Still reeling from the Minnie Miner show?” Pearl asked him. “Not per se,” Quinn said. “That sounds like something Winston Castle would say. He must have gotten to you with his member-of-parliament persona.” “I suppose that’s why I’m calling,” Quinn said. “There’s something familiar about Winston Castle’s act. It reminds me of a magician’s patter, designed to get you looking at one hand while he’s doing something with the other. Just when everybody’s attention is distracted, Presto! Out of the hat pops the rabbit.” “Or the right card,” “Never play poker with them,” Quinn said. “Rabbits?” “People. Like the ones in Winston Castle’s whack-job family, or whatever it is. They have their patter.” “Meaning?” “Maybe somebody has a real Michelangelo up a sleeve.” “Magicians,” Pearl said, not quite understanding. “I’ve always kind of liked them.” “Their act wouldn’t work if you didn’t.” “I still like them.” “They cut people in half, you know.” “Only beautiful girls. And it doesn’t seem to hurt.” “I wouldn’t want to see you proved wrong.” “Where are you going with this,” Pearl asked with a sigh. Jody had apparently worn her down. “We are going to stake out the Far Castle’s Garden.” “I thought we were concentrating on D.O.A.” “Maybe we are,” Quinn said. “My guess is he’s not one of the many people who think Bellazza isn’t in the garden, just because an imitation has already been found there.” “Are we among the many, Quinn?” “On one hand, yes.” “But on the other?” “Presto!” 78 The searcher came by night, as Quinn had suspected he would, and hours after the restaurant had closed. Quinn was slouching low behind the steering wheel in the black Lincoln. He’d parked where he had a catty-corner view across the intersection and the Far Castle’s outdoor dining area. Beyond the stacked and locked tables and chairs loomed the shadowed topiary forms of the garden. Beginning several feet behind the flower beds was the larger garden, wilder and less arranged than the beds, with a variety of

The human being does not hop out of the magician's hat in the way that the ape climbs down from the tree; he also does not emerge from the hand of a creator who surveys everything in advance with his foreknowledge. He is the product of a production that is not itself a human being. The human being was not yet what he would become before he became it.

The magician shrugged and doffed his own hat, and a small tendril of steam poured out with a whistle like a tea-kettle.

Magician's Girl You’ll know when. My gossamer singlet flushes to its ends in fire. The black hats, too, begin to hate you. One wrong word & they curl their brims to reveal knives. By Thursday, the floor translates your footfalls as Morse code. At your slow soft shoe, the oubliette opens. Another narrow not-death & the curtains become girls again. They leave you again. They don’t love you like Mother does, bound to the velvet board, febrile Mother willing your water-tank, your white-gloved touch, the part of her night where she is finally a half of you. Despite the involvement of blades. Despite my holding-down hands, their quiver. She knows about your knob-kneed bedmates, their soft white hair. Girls lost in the long warren of your arms. Big-toothed girls, girls who disappear & disappear. You blame yourself. Why? You don’t know that what you do in the dark of your room—I do it too? Watch closely. Here are my man’s hands. Here is my girl’s mouth, speaking—

Is the child having some sort of hat-related fit?

Words can be as tricky as a sneaky magician pulling tricks out of their linguistic hats. But you, my witty friend, you've got the magic decoder ring for patterns! So, let those words try their verbal acrobatics while you're on the lookout for the real patterns that spill the secrets of truth. It's like watching a linguistic circus, and you're the ringmaster of wit!

magician flourishing handkerchiefs from a hat, he realized he’d been wrong. Fun was fine when you were young, but as you got older it was kindness that counted, kindness that showed up.

If, he mused, I could believe God created woman from the rib of such a dull and simple creature as man, then for all the days and nights of my life I should worship the Divine Magician. To produce rabbits from a hat is nothing.

How good is your head movement? Do you know where everyone stands if the ball comes to you? Scholes and Lampard never look surprised when they receive the ball because they have already scoped several courses of action, and by the time they release it, several more. That is why they can surprise everyone with their service to their strikers – flicked-through passes, early crosses, deft one-twos. Whether you are a midfield magician or a catalytic C, pulling rabbits out of hats should not be beyond you.

Me, I look for tattered shards of happiness. Rootless, as I breathe in between these windowless walls, pretending to be a princess wearing a magician’s hat, of discarded old newspapers……

Origin stories are like birthday parties: very exciting and colorful and noisy; but in the end, they’re all the same. Anticipation sizzles around for weeks before the Big Day, but when it comes, your shindig looks pretty much like the little one Peter had last month. That’s an order of operations: take off your coats, pin the tail on the donkey, infection, singing, cake, mutation, balloon, gifts, branding, maybe a magician or a clown, exhaustion, and a bag of toys to take home. You’re the same person today as yesterday. You just got a really big present and a shiny new hat to wear.

I've got a system." He reached under a stack on the left corner of his desk, pulled out a file. "It's like the magician's tablecloth trick," she commented. "Nicely done." "Want to see me pull a rabbit out of my hat?

She found Emery and Mg. Aviosky talking to two disgruntled police officers. Or rather, Mg. Aviosky stood by silently while Emery yelled at them. “Then take me!” Emery shouted, a vein on the side of his forehead looking especially rigid. The skin around his eyes was flushed, and he waved his hands in the air like cleavers. “Don’t you understand? She might be in there! They all might be in there. We have to go!” “Sir,” said the taller officer, “as I’ve already explained, we can only—” “Emery!” Ceony shouted as she pushed past the last of the crowd. Emery whirled around at his name. “It’s okay, we got out before—” The rest of her words were cut off when Emery threw his arms around her and embraced her, sending her top hat—and her stomach—tumbling to the ground.