"Make the secret a lot more trouble than the trick seems worth. You will be fooled by a trick if it involves more time, money and practice than you (or any other sane onlooker) would be willing to invest. My partner, Penn, and I once produced 500 live cockroaches from a top hat on the desk of talk-show host David Letterman. To prepare this took weeks. We hired an entomologist who provided slow-moving, camera-friendly cockroaches (the kind from under your stove don’t hang around for close-ups) and taught us to pick the bugs up without screaming like preadolescent girls. Then we built a secret compartment out of foam-core (one of the few materials cockroaches can’t cling to) and worked out a devious routine for sneaking the compartment into the hat. More trouble than the trick was worth? To you, probably. But not to magicians." [1]

[1] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Teller-Reveals-Hi...

I read something similar in this interview:

http://www.esquire.com/features/teller-magician-interview-10...

"Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect"

No wonder most successful people just look lucky to the masses. Because they achieve feats which can't be achieved with ordinary efforts. If you go by the normal effort, it isn't surprising successful people look lucky, just like magic.

Yup, that's the one I was looking for. Thanks!

Are you thinking of the quote from this article? http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Teller-Reveals-Hi...

"You will be fooled by a trick if it involves more time, money and practice than you (or any other sane onlooker) would be willing to invest."

David Blane has a very interesting TED Talk on this, in which he shares how much preparation goes into doing some of his endurance tricks.

At the end of the talk he actually breaks down. Its one of my best TED Talks, I watch it almost every week to remind that even the most magical thing is hardly magical when you look at the effort that goes behind it.

Linky: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_blaine_how_i_held_my_breath_f...