AMORALMAN: A True Story and Other Lies

But it was the “twenty miles to Joplin” story that helped me understand what Ronnie meant by “let them tell themselves the story.” Ti took a regular fishing trip with two buddies. On one particular trip, driving to the fishing hole, the three men saw a work crew on the opposite side of the roadway, installing a sign that read: 20 miles to joplin. T

“You know what I always saw you doing someday?” “What’s that?” “Writing.”

You can learn a lot about yourself when you pretend to be someone else. Being Cody allowed me to participate in the world and yet still remain separate from it. I could hide behind his eyes and have interactions that weren’t distorted by my own knowledge, my own insecurities, my own fears. In many ways, Cody’s interactions were more honest and auth

I sat there stunned, grappling with the new information. All that time I was dealing to the donks, I was the prisoner of a cave within a cave. Like the donks, I was unable to escape because I believed I was already free.

He wanted to be remembered as a real magician, someone who revealed more than he concealed, someone who bridged the gap between our collective consciousness and the divine.

Just as Walter didn’t fulfill his dad’s dream, he also failed to achieve his own goal of becoming one of the great conjurors of the day.

The moment we knowingly conceal information from others we set a boundary between ourselves and those who do not possess the knowledge. This boundary provides us with a space of privacy and privilege. It can be used to shield us from pain and protect us from harm. Or it can act as a barrier, built to exclude and oppress those deemed unworthy of acc

I am not interested in fooling people. Or at least that’s why I’m so uncomfortable performing as a magician. It’s not about deception. It’s about the deception of truth. To know illusions is to know reality. How can we know what’s true if we can’t recognize what’s false?

“Mr. Welles, you’re an accomplished director, writer, producer, a star of radio, stage, and screen. When you’re gone, how would you like to be remembered?” Orson replied, “As a magician.”