To drive a car in rural America is freedom. Before I had a car, I'd never seen a rock and roll show, I'd never seen a comic or a show.
— Penn Jillette
I like things matching. I have an upright bass, a drum kit and a grand piano that's the same color. I tend to overthink things.
If you spend a lot of time lying to people, you think a lot about what the truth means.
Charities are really good. To a certain extent, the ones you pick are arbitrary.
It's only the losers named 'Dave' that think having an unusual name is bad, and who cares what they think? They're named 'Dave.'
Poker has the feeling of a sport, but you don't have to do push-ups.
Performers have the right to say what they want to, and anyone paying money has the right to accept or reject the art and entertainment that's available.
Bob Saget is the dirtiest comic who's ever lived. Nobody touches him.
Modern American magic, late 20th century magic, is tremendously disrespectful of the audience.
I think the media spends a lot of time fooling itself.
I was always a little embarrassed when there was an act on television that requires a great deal of skill but is a little goofy, and the host comes over and acts like the person doing this skill is some sort of fool for having learned to do something that's very, very difficult.
I am a huge fan of proselytizing. I am a huge fan of speaking your mind. The only way we can share the universe... is by talking very strongly about what we believe.
I'm a big fan of huge populations of people, so you'd think with 300 million people in the country, you don't even have to please 1% to be phenomenally successful.
If I go out to dinner with you and you order wine, I leave. I won't be around drugs and alcohol at all.
One of the things that Teller and I are obsessed with, one of the reasons that we're in magic, is the difference between fantasy and reality.
The First Amendment says nothing about your getting paid for saying anything. It just says you can say it. I don't believe that if a corporation pulls all the money out of you or a network pulls their money away or you get fired, you're being censored.
The skills that we have are the actual magic skills - not the performing skills. We have to separate those. But the actual skills that make the tricks work, we don't get to use again.
My hair is way, way long. I've hitchhiked across the country a zillion times. I've ridden in every car. I was never a hippie. It takes more than long hair.
It is really funny to see people that you know acting unpleasantly just because there are TV cameras on.
If I had to imagine omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent power in the universe that chose to make my mother suffer, I don't know how I would make that make sense in the universe.
No one can tell you the rules of 'Celebrity Apprentice.' No one. Donald Trump just does what he wants, which is mostly pontificating to people who are sucking up to him, while the network people try to manipulate him into making the highest-rated show they can.
'Moxie' is a name that was created by an American for the first national soft drink and then went on to mean chutzpah, and that's nice.
Poker would have never gotten on TV when we only had three networks.
Comedy is taken care of by a free market.
When I buy Windows 98, I'm not only buying something useful, I'm giving money to Bill Gates, which is a really good thing.
I came to magic absolutely hating magic on a very, very deep level.
If there are two things Penn & Teller stand for, it's the truth & lying, although not necessarily in that order.
A joke is a way to say, 'I'm going to do something funny now. If I don't get a laugh at the end, I'm a failure.'
Before you can read, you know the difference between a story and reality. And, of course, by the time you're old enough to do any real damage with an Uzi, you've learned that difference.
I'm a hardcore libertarian - I want everything legal - but I also believe that you have the right to free association.
In my private life, I'm not around any drugs or alcohol.
Teller and I worked Renaissance Festivals and street performing - actually more real, no kidding around, Philadelphia street performing than we did Renaissance Festivals.
The medium is not the message - the message is the message.
We aren't people who believe that just because we're performers our opinions on everything need to be known.
I'm very happy being big and effeminate.
In reality, many people let go of religion later in life.
If you want to turn out an atheist child, unconditional love constantly is a good way to do it.
The secret truth of 'Celebrity Apprentice' is that it isn't very hard... 'Celebrity Apprentice' is easy like junior high is easy. All the arithmetic, the creative writing and the history are super simple, but like junior high, you do that easy work surrounded by people who are full-tilt, hormone-raging bug nutty.
I believe in individual rights so much that I don't like any sort of 'what's good for the cause'-type questions.
You have in Vegas the most heterogeneous audience you're gonna get anywhere in the country. In Boston, Chicago, Miami, you know who goes to the theater. In Vegas, you have people who only see one theater show a year, and it's in Vegas.
Magic is the Special Olympics of entertainment.
I think people under age 55 come to Vegas with a certain sense of irony.
I don't know what's best for other people.
I started out as a juggler, so I know what it means to spend eight hours a day, seven days a week practicing something that people just dismiss with a wave of hand.
If you want to talk about magic, the stuff that blows me away is the stuff that's done close up.
But it's much more exciting to make Die Hard. One of the reasons that I think that movie is so successful is it deals with those very important blue-collar relationship themes. But it's more visually beautiful to show things blowing up. It just gives you more on the screen.
I've never had a drink of alcohol or any drug in my life.
It wasn't success, because Teller and I, by the time Asparagus Valley got together - within a year, we had achieved all our goals. I mean, our goal was to earn our living doing exactly what we wanted. Which is many people's goal.
The fact is that violence gives you a rush.
The only place we were really told to tone it down - where other people would use the word censorship, but I wouldn't - was when we did MTV right after the Beavis and Butt-head thing.
