James Randi

There's something about the Houdini act that is not always made clear - about the escape act in general.

People who are smart get into Mensa. People who are really smart look around and leave.

... We in the USA have been depending on prayers, pleading, and self-abasement to a deity to bring us magical advantages, and have been encouraged to attribute our prosperity and general success among nations, to that sort of action. In my opinion, hard work and dedication to logic and reason ought to be recognized as the reasons for our achievements, not appeals to a mythical friend-in-the-sky. We got where we are in spite of, not because of, those incantations.

We owe it to our kids to inform them and train them how to think, not what to think.

The market for nonsense is infinite.

Everyone who believes in telekinesis, raise my hand.

I believe in the basic goodness of my species, because that appears to be a positive tactic and quality that leads to better chances of survival- and in spite of our foolishness, we seem to have survived.

Expose every belief to the light of reason, discourse, facts, scientific observations; question everything, be sceptical because this is the only chance at life you will ever get.

However, I believe that it would be difficult to have legitimate scientists agree to participate.

There exists in society a very special class of persons that I have always referred to as the Believers. These are folks who have chosen to accept a certain religion, philosophy, theory, idea or notion and cling to that belief regardless of any evidence that might, for anyone else, bring it into doubt. They are the ones who encourage and support the fanatics and the frauds of any given age. No amount of evidence, no matter how strong, will bring them any enlightenment. They are the sheep who beg to be fleeced and butch

Nature doesn't cheat - people do.

They would have been very let down if they had to leave the theater and he had missed. He would feel badly. Everyone would feel badly. But he never let them down.

No matter how smart or well-educated you are, you can be deceived.

I am in a very peculiar business: I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know.

To make sure that my blasphemy is thoroughly expressed, I hereby state my opinion that the notion of a god is a basic superstition, that there is no evidence for the existence of any god(s), that devils, demons, angels and saints are myths, that there is no life after death, heaven nor hell, that the Pope is a dangerous, bigoted, medieval dinosaur, and that the Holy Ghost is a comic-book character worthy of laughter and derision.

I questioned her further, and eventually got to talk to her doctor. And her doctor sort of shook his head and he said, I have examined her for throat cancer at least 15 times in the past few years.

A quick example of that is a woman who said she'd been healed of throat cancer where the faith healer admitted he touched her on the forehead.

No evidence against a firmly-held belief, no matter how good or abundant it may be, will sway the true believer.

Uri Geller may have psychic powers by means of which he can bend spoons; if so, he appears to be doing it the hard way.

The only difference is that religion is much better organized and has been around much longer, but it's the same story with different characters and different costumes.

We have fought long and hard to escape from medieval superstition. I, for one, do not wish to go back.

The New Age? Its just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds.

One thing that has made a big comeback just recently is this business of speaking with the dead. To my innocent mind, 'dead' implies incapable of communicating.

[Psychics] use exactly the same gimmicks that we magicians do - the same physical methods, the same psychological methods - and they effectively and profoundly deceive millions of people around the earth, to their detriment.

Death is the ultimate disappointment

I want to be cremated, and I want my ashes blown in Uri Geller's eyes.

I can go into a lab and fool the rear ends off any group of scientists.

I do not expect that homeopathy will ever be established as a legitimate form of treatment, but I do expect that it will continue to be popular.

Feeling better is not actually being better.

gods are children's blankets that get carried over into adulthood.