Derren Brown

"My techniques are concerned with reading signals from people, tiny unconscious clues that betray their thoughts. I tend to see it like a game..."

"For me, the most enjoyable aspect of going out and performing is that I never know how susceptible people will be to my methods."

"Every day when you leave your home you give away more than you could ever imagine about who you are and what you do."

"A good communicator affects our physiology. The power of voice can entrance us – even induce or remove pain."

"Walthamstow Stadium: Where hundreds of men, who all look like my dad, come to watch some thin dogs running around."

"Shopping Malls: Modern cathedrals to spending money. They’re designed to disorientate us and make us stay longer than we need to. Every brick is there to manipulate us to buy."

"Some athletes use the mind to try and improve stamina and strength. Can I use my mind to take it away?"

"I control the conditions so my testers become my testees."

"How would I describe what I do? I suppose a mixture of psychological reading and showmanship and a special form of poncing-about which kind of comes together to form the effect of thought reading and psychological influence but non, non-psychic... not ‘non-non-psychic’, non-psychic."

"(In answer to the question ‘Were you at all scared of Chris Ryan?’) I wasn’t scared of Chris Ryan although I was a little bit put off by his white jeans. As a straight man that’s been in the SAS I found that surprising and it did throw me a little bit.."

"(In answer to the question ‘How would you describe yourself in three words?’) Short and balding."

"I like my parrot, Figaro. Not in a wrong way – I mean, yes, he’ll do anything for a mouth full of seed but nothing tacky."

"This program fuses magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship. I achieve all the results you’ll see here through a varied mixture of those techniques. At no point are actors or stooges used in the show."

"There are three things I noticed about being thirty-three: Failing memory, hair loss and failing memory."

"Performing the magic, for me, is not about convincing anyone I have amazing abilities. It’s about providing a journey which comes to a place where the brain starts spinning. And of course, the best brains spin the most."

"Fingers: We’ve all got them and we shouldn’t be embarrassed about them."

"I am embarrassingly incompetent at football or any kind of team sport. I’m so bad it would anger you."

"Music is arguably the most affecting of the arts; intelligible to all people yet untranslatable into any other idiom. To Schopenhauer it was a direct expression of the ‘world will’... and was good when he had guests over."

"We all get stuck in our belief systems, however sensible we think they are. To me, the New Age community is particularly guilty of not testing or challenging what it claims."

"A lot is said about children having stronger psychic ability because they’re so unjaded and innocent. This excruciating view of children is generally expounded by people who think like children and perhaps can be forgiven."

"(speaking in a solemn tone to a group of young school children) Now you know that your headmistress, Miss Davis, was going to come in here and just check that you were all going to be well behaved. She can’t do that because, as many of you probably know, she can’t be here today, er, because her pants fell down earlier on. It’s not funny. If any of you see her, don’t make a fuss because it’s a bit embarrassing for her, OK? Alright? It’s not funny."

"Some people believe that a person’s spirit is captured when they are photographed. I invite those of you who don’t believe that to take a photograph of someone you love a stab it repeatedly with a pair of scissors. Maybe they do capture something of the soul."

"How many powerful memories are triggered by smell and taste? Your mother’s old perfume, the smell your father’s breath, the taste of the soap they’d make you eat."

"One area which shows how unknowingly predictable we are, is the way we decorate our houses. We all feel we make unique and distinct choices, yet we all conform to a cultural standard."

"So, what I do is a mixture of genuine psychological technique as well as all the chicanery and showmanship of the magician but it was enormously tempting to see what a clinical psychologist would make of it."

"Remember how you used to try and make kids turn round at school by staring at the back of their heads? And how they used to go home early crying with blood coming out of their ears?"

"Every week we go to the supermarket and every week we allow ourselves to be manipulated by the packaging and layout of the goods."

"Many things we misread as meaningful are quite ordinary coincidences. For example, it’s not unlikely that occasionally someone will phone you after you’ve been thinking about them. But we give these things value to make sense of our lives."

"(speaking of Blackpool) Ah, I remember I used to come here as a child and it’s still really... shit, isn’t it, let’s be honest."

"This is the comforting and lovely Leadenhall Market, an accommodating inter-mammary cleft in the bosom of old Londinium."

"In Victorian criminology there was an enthusiasm for spotting criminal tendencies in a person’s features."

"Language is a gift that puts lyrics to the music of our lives. Without spoken language we wouldn’t be able to say, ‘I love you’. We’d have to say ‘uuurrrgghh’ or hold up a sign. And whether it’s one person’s gentle English or another’s muddy, arrogant French, it’s our language that makes us unapproachable and difficult to understand."

"Some people like to talk of intuition as a way of knowing truth; that gut reactions are as good as evidence based facts. It’s a really silly way of thinking..."

"The Sun has come to represent enlightenment and salvation across many cultures. I think that if we remove such comforting concepts we are required to do more soul searching but eventually our eyes become accustomed to the dark and our lives become richer."

"Do you think astrologists, palm readers and the like can really tell everything about you? That your personality can be read from your birth date, your hand or from sensing vibrations? Very possible."

"In the nineteenth century, so-called ‘psychics’ were often tested by having to guess the details on a postcard sealed in an envelope. Often they did surprisingly well so i thought it would be worth presenting some modern day non-psychics with the same challenge."

"I hated sports at school and hated my sports teachers. Still do in fact - especially Mr Broomfield. He remains an insult to retarded, overbearing megalomaniacs to this day."

"What makes us dream of some things and not others? Why might we pick up on a trivial event from the day and not something more important? Would it be possible to have someone dream of specific subjects by subtly suggesting those ideas?"

"In 1883 a relatively unknown Italian magician and alchemist called Alessandro Donnini chose the streets of Venice for an incredible treasure hunt. He asked the count Giovanni Francesco to hide a necklace anywhere in the district of San Marco, and Alessandro's task was to find it. All of Venice was invited to watch and place their bets as to whether or not he could do it. Alessandro used a method called muscle reading. He had the count hold on to his wrist and felt for any tiny unconscious clues, as to which way to go. He found the necklace in just over an hour and a half. It was a triumph, and all the townsfolk went fucking mental."

"Well, it took me over two hours to find Frencesco’s keys which was disappointing but I did go to Venice for free and I didn’t fall into the canal on the way home like a twat."

"Our tendency to think that we're not predictable is probably one of our more predictable traits."

"In 1957, James Vicary, a market researcher, conducted a six week test in a New Jersey movie theatre. A high-speed projector repeatedly and subliminally flashed the slogans ‘drink Coke’ and ‘eat popcorn’ over the film. I thought I’d make my own cinema ad to try something similar. According to Vicary, popcorn sales went up by 57.5% and Coke sales by 18.1%... Whether Vicary’s results were due to the subliminals can never be shown and the experiment has become shrouded in urban myth. This is the Genesis Cinema in East London, which kindly agreed to include our ad amongst the trailers for a screening of Ocean's Twelve, a carefully chosen film which, if the ad works, the audience will not be able to remember. Not a bad thing."

"Vienna. It means nothing to me but to Orson Welles, it was the setting for one of his finest performances - and a place to get huge plates of cheap rich food. I followed the footsteps of my hero, which are still visible in the concrete, to the world famous Ferris wheel."

"Canterbury Cathedral: The first ever pocket watch was found in the walls of its cloister many hundreds of years ago. I decided to come, in the rain, to play with the locals and, if time permitted, attend the evening service."

"Séances lost their popularity with the invention of infrared photography when it became possible to see what mediums were doing in the dark. Nowadays, spiritualists’ fakery is more ambiguous and subtle."

"Here's a place you'll never go: Monte Carlo on the French Riviera. As a massive celebrity, it's like a second home for me. If I just want to piss off somewhere for six months to a year to get away from tramps and fans I tend to come here in one of my big fucking expensive yachts."

"It’s Derren Brown, it’s Derren Brown, it’s Derren Brown, it’s Derren Brown. He’s very kind, he’ll read your mind, even if you’re blind, your thoughts he’ll find,"

"(Whilst having his makeup done) This is the makeup process. I’ve been here since half past five this morning. So would you say you’re bringing out a beauty that’s already there? How does it work? How do we hide the bald patch?"

"(When asked about the method for a trick where a member of the public answers a public pay-phone only to immediately slump to the floor as if asleep) I was saying ‘there’s fifty quid under the phone book. Just pretend. You’re on TV’."

"Even though it’s dark sometimes or it’s scary for the people involved, ultimately I always make sure they’re exhilarated by it. It’s genuinely a real pleasure to take people to that place."