"The Prestige"

* -Cutter: Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"."

* -Cutter: Now you're looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course, you're not really looking. You don't really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.

* -Robert Angier: I never thought I'd find an answer at the bottom of a pint glass.
-Cutter: Hasn't stopped you looking, has it?

* -Sarah: Alfred I can't live like this!
-Alfred Borden: Well, what do you want from me?
-Sarah: I want... I want you to be honest with me. No tricks, no lies, no secrets.
[pause]
-Sarah: Do you... do you love me?
-Alfred Borden: Not today. No.

* -Alfred Borden: Never show the trick to anyone. They'll beg you and they'll flatter you for the secret, but as soon as you give it up... you'll be nothing to them.

* -Alfred Borden: The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything.

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

* -Cutter: I knew a sailor once, got tangled in the rigging. We pulled him out, but it took him five minutes to cough. He said it was like going home

* -Nikola Tesla: You're familiar with the phrase "man's reach exceeds his grasp"? It's a lie: man's grasp exceeds his nerve.

* -Nikola Tesla: Society tolerates only one change at a time.

* -Cutter: Obsession is a young man's game .

* -Robert Angier: Man's reach exceeds his imagination!

* -Nikola Tesla: Things don't always go as planned, Mr. Angier. That's the beauty of science.

* -