Being gay facilitated my capacity for shame. As a child, I carried around this thing that gradually became this big dark secret. When I came out in a newspaper interview at 30 I was expecting the reaction the following day to be like the climax of 'Dead Poets Society,' but actually no one really cared.

Derren Brown

There are things in your life which you are in control of, and those you're not. You need to not care about those things which you're not in control of, and when you come to really understand that, you can go from being really upset about something to that lovely feeling of being a kid where everything is okay.

Derren Brown

being-real upset kids

Each of us is leading a difficult life, and when we meet people we are seeing only a tiny part of the thinnest veneer of their complex, troubled existences. To practise anything other than kindness towards them, to treat them in any way save generously, is to quietly deny their humanity.

Derren Brown

humanity kindness people

We're terrible at realising what goes on in other people's heads because we are trapped inside our own.

Derren Brown

terrible goes-on people

Have your cake and eat it... there's no other reason to have a cake

Derren Brown

cake reason tea

I control the conditions so my testers become my testees.

Derren Brown

testers conditions

To impress people as much as we would wish, we would first need to successfully adopt each of their value systems

Derren Brown

wish people needs

The single most valuable human trait, the one quality every schoolchild and adult should be taught to nurture, is, quite simply, kindness.

Derren Brown

quality adults kindness

...there is a fine line between wishing to produce child-like astonishment and treating people like infants.

Derren Brown

magic children people

When [the magician] clicks his fingers and cards change to the four aces, we know we have experienced sleight of hand. Real magic would not be quite that quick and easy. Real magic would take investment. Real magic would draw you in, and make you nervous.

Derren Brown

magic real hands

Whereas non-scientific (and potentially dangerous) thinking starts with a premise and then looks for things that support it, scientific thinking constantly tries to disprove itself. That alone makes all the difference in the world.

Derren Brown

support differences thinking

The desire to impress is an efficient means of bringing out one’s least impressive qualities.

Derren Brown

quality desire mean

We forget our health and comfort and notice a pinching shoe. Much of living well is detaching from our boring stories of pain and shifting focus

Derren Brown

shoes pain focus

I am often dishonest in my techniques ... I happily admit to cheating, it's all part of the game. I hope some of the fun for the viewer comes from not knowing what's real and what isn't

Derren Brown

real fun cheating

Booking an act for my Dad's 70th birthday, I wanted a great act and went straight to John Archer- his reputation in the magic world is among the very best. I was so pleased he was able to do it, and he absolutely brought the house down. It was brilliant, hysterically funny, and perfectly pitched for the occasion. He made the evening. I'd recommend him unreservedly.

Derren Brown

archer dad house

Magic is a performance, and a performance should have an honesty, a relevance and a resonance if it is to be offered to spectators without insulting them.

Derren Brown

honesty insulting should-have

Magic is not inherently anything. It is what you sell it as.

Derren Brown

sells magic

Dull magic is a collection of tricks: great magic should sting.

Derren Brown

magic should dull

Liberating but hard to remember we're just bit-parts in the lives of people we know, who care very little for our secrets

Derren Brown

who-cares secret people

Our fascination with weather: its caprices and changes as an antidote to the eternal repetition of daily life; a helpful illusion of novelty

Derren Brown

novelty fascination weather

In magic we have a variety of "uses" for our art beyond magic itself, which reminds me of the notion of art therapy. The rendering of art inferior to therapy is an interesting one: interesting in the sense that it makes me want to vomit angrily.

Derren Brown

magic art interesting