I have had no formal training in painting: I gave up Art A level because I was sick of drawing peppers. - Derren Brown

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 practice anything other than kindness towards them, to treat them in any way save generously, is to quietly deny their humanity.

[Magic] can be poorly presented and surrounded by naffness, and often amounts to little more than childish attempts to fool you. I guess it’s largely to escape those associations that I’ve gone the route I have.

We are allowed to question people about their politics or ethics and expect them to defend their beliefs, or at least hold their own in any other important matter by recourse to evidence, yet somehow on the massive subject of God and how he might have us behave, all rational discussion must stop the moment we hear 'I believe'.