Welcome to Litsy!

I was already interested in him when I started, but now I'm in love with him. What an amazing man and an amazing life. Very well-written, too. Interesting and not too scholarly. One could perhaps say the book is... Magical.

"The Houdini Shrine had burned for ten years. I now, reverently -- turn out the light. It is finished. Good night, Harry!"

And with that, she slowly switched off the red lightbulb that had illuminated a photo of Houdini.

"He was exceptional, a unique personality, and besides that, he was one of the noblest and sweetest of men."

"When I walked into the ... room and saw that beautiful blonde, her applesauce meant nothing to me. I have been through apple orchards."

"Then don't be a fraud," Houdini suggested.

"I wrote that now I know how kings have given up their kingdoms for a woman ... You are gorgeous. You are wonderful."

"Your Love bestowed upon me is Duly Appreciated though way times I may be apparently thoughtless, my mind is compelled to carry so many things, but my heart only one on earth and that is you."

He was greater than us but, in the end, he was one of us.

"You could have founded a religion on the strength of what you were doing."

"A man is only a man, and the flesh revenges itself."

... he understood that if you mention something and then deny it, the denial is often overlooked or forgotten. When one is asked to forget something specific, it's this very thing that stands out in the mind and therefore the most difficult to forget.

"In addressing your audience ... speak as you would to critical friends, thereby gaining their confidence and sympathy and no matter what may worry or trouble you, never let your audience detect any irritability or ill temper, but always display a bright and pleasing manner."

"It isn't any fun taking your life in your hands. Really, I'm in earnest."

"I let all of your prisoners out," Houdini announced to the waiting visitors and press. Two guards jumped up and rushed out into the corridor.

"But I locked them all in again," he added.

"I do not know whether I am going to get out of it or not, but I can assure You I am going to do my best."

"Isn't that my job, your highness," Houdini countered, "to make the impossible possible?"

"I heard that you don't laugh anymore. Neither do I . . . What seems to be the matter with us?"

"...Yet, it pleased me very much to have you express the feeling, for it is so rare nowadays to find anyone who appreciates kindness, and it shows, what I knew all along, that you have a good heart and it is in the right place."

"I feel nervous ... This constant fear of exposure is almost unbearable. I fully realize it is only a question of time until I am caught, and it is this suspense that causes my nerves to keep stirring."

Houdini's leonine physique was known to anyone who ever saw one of his beefcake publicity photos, but the intensity and nervous energy that he summoned up just to prepare for his performances were appreciated only buy those who were privy to the backstages of the vaudeville circuit.

"That was the first time I realised the public wanted drama. Give 'em a hint of danger, perhaps of death -- and you'll have 'em packing in to see you!"

"See, darling, I told you I would send you away if you disobeyed, but I didn't say I wouldn't fly after you and bring you back."

There was a strange feeling in the salt air, the crescent moon peeking in and out from behind rapidly moving clouds.

He had become notorious in Appleton as the boy who had unlocked all the doors to the shops on College Avenue one night.

... A few hours later they were back home with a fresh $2 in change, the fruits of the nine-year-old's resourcefulness.

Him and I both spent part of our childhoods in the Fox Valley in Wisconsin. My great-great-great-grandma babysat him as a child (cue jokes about if he escaped his crib or playpen). So I obviously have to read it.