The Best Robert Angier Quotes

Robert: He's a dreadful magician.
Cutter: No, he's a wonderful magician. He's a dreadful showman.

Robert: [to Borden] You always were the better magician. We both know that. Whatever your secret was, you have to agree, mine is better.

Alfred: He's progressive, he's predictable, he's boring. I mean, Milton's got success, whatever that means, and now he's scared, he won't take any risks at all. I mean, he's squandering the goodwill of the audience with these tired, second-rate tricks...
Robert: They're all favorites, please...
Alfred: Favorites? Come on, give me something fresh, he wont even try a bloody bullet catch!
Cutter: A bullet catch is suicide, all it takes is some smart-ass volunteer to put a button in the barrel...
Alfred: Fine, use a plant!
Robert: You can't use plants for every trick!
Julia: There'll be no seats left for the punters!
[laughs]
Alfred: Fine, no bullet catch, whatever, but the point is... a real magician tries to invent something new, that other magicians are gonna scratch their heads over, you know?
Cutter: Right, then you sell it to him for a small fortune?
Alfred: All right...
Cutter: I suppose you have such a trick?
Alfred: Actually, I do.

Robert: Man's reach exceeds his imagination!

Gerald: You would drink, too, if you knew the world half as well as I do.

Robert: It was the greatest magic trick I've ever seen.

Robert: Where are the wires?
Alley: Exactly.

Robert: Would I be the man in the box or the prestige?

Alfred: You went half way around the world, you spent a fortune, you did terrible things - really terrible things, Robert, and all for nothing.
Robert: For nothing?
Alfred: Yeah
Robert: You never understood why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you... then you got to see something really special. You really don't know? It was... it was the look on their faces...

Nikola: Mr. Angier, have you considered the cost of such a machine?
Robert: Price is not an object.
Nikola: Perhaps not, but have you considered the *cost*?
Robert: I'm not sure I follow.
Nikola: Go home. Forget this thing. I can recognize an obsession, no good will come of it.
Robert: Why, haven't good come of your obsessions?
Nikola: Well, at first. But I followed them too long. I'm their slave... and one day they'll choose to destroy me.
Robert: If you understand an obsession, then you know you won't change my mind.

Robert: But here, at the turn, I must leave you Borden. Yes, you, Borden, sitting there in your cell, awaiting your death. For my murder.

Robert: I thought you said I'd have to get my hands dirty.
Cutter: Maybe someday you will; I just needed to know that you could.

Gerald: Did you think you were unique, Mr Angier? I've been Caesar. I've played Faust. How hard could it possibly be to play the Great Danton?

Robert: No one cares about the man in the box, the man who disappears.

Cutter: Take a minute to consider your achievement. I once told you about a sailor who drowned.
Robert: Yes, he said it was like going home.
Cutter: I lied. He said it was agony.

Robert: My passion is equal to the task.

Robert: The man stole my life. I steal his trick.

Alfred: [realizes Fallon's buried after trading him back] Alive?
Robert: How fast can you dig?

[Borden shoots Angier in the waist, picking up the red rubber ball, when the two reveal their prestige to one another]
Robert: A brother... a twin. You were Fallon... the whole time?
Alfred: No. We were both Fallon. And we were both Borden.
Robert: [panting] Were you - were you the one who went into the box or the one who came back out?
Alfred: We took turns. The trick is where we would swap.
[we see the flashback of both twins performing The Transported Man]
Robert: [breathing heavily] Cutter knew. Cutter knew. But I told him it was too simple, too easy.
Alfred: No... simple, maybe, but not easy. There's nothing easy about two men sharing one life.
[we see the flashback showing one of the twins cutting the other twins' fingers off]
Robert: Wh-What about Olivia? And your wife?
Alfred: We each loved one of them.
[we see the flashback of both lovers]
Alfred: I loved Sarah. He loved Olivia. We each had half a full life, really, which was enough for us. Just... but not for them. You see, sacrifice, Robert - that's the price of a good trick. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?
Robert: [labored breathing] I've - I've made sacrifices.
[wheezing]
Robert: Yes.
Alfred: It takes nothing to steal another man's work.
Robert: It takes everything.
[we see the flashback of Angier killing the clone of himself while doing The Real Transported Man trick]
Robert: It took courage... it took courage to climb into that machine every night... not knowing... if I'd be the man in the box... or the prestige. Do you want - want to see. What it cost me? Y-you didn't see where you are, did you? Look. Look
Alfred: Look here... you went halfway around the world. You spent a fortune. You did terrible things... really terrible things, Robert. And all for nothing.
Robert: For nothing?
Alfred: Yeah.
Robert: You never understood... why we did this? The audience knows the truth - the world is simple... and miserable... solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder. And then you... then you got to see something very special. You really don't know? It was... it was the look on their faces.
[Angier wheezes and exhales, collapsing dead, and Borden walks out of the theatre alone]

[after finding Gerald Root, Angier's new double]
Cutter: He's perfect. He needs some work, but when I get through with him, he could be your brother.
Robert: I don't need him to be my brother, I need him to be *me*!

Robert: Which hat is mine?
Nikola: They are all your hat, Mr. Angier.