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Aging & Wisdom Quote by Lance Burton

"The dove act? I'm still working on it. I don't think it's perfect yet. I got my first pair of doves when I was 14 years old. That was the beginning of the formation of that act. So it's been 24 years now that I've been working on it"

About this Quote

Perfection, here, is less a standard than a sales strategy - and Lance Burton knows exactly how to make that confession land. By calling the dove act something he's "still working on", he punctures the myth of the effortless magician. The line carries a backstage intimacy, like you're being let in on the secret that the real trick isn't the bird; it's the labor.

The timeline does the heavy lifting: first doves at 14, then 24 years of refinement. That's not autobiography for its own sake. It's credentialing in the most disarming form possible. He isn't bragging about mastery; he's bragging about apprenticeship. In a culture that worships "natural talent", Burton makes craft the headline, reframing virtuosity as endurance. The subtext is: what looks spontaneous under stage lights is actually a long relationship with repetition, failure, and incremental gains.

There's also something quietly moral in the choice of doves. Doves read as purity, peace, a certain old-school Las Vegas elegance. Burton's admission that the act isn't "perfect yet" keeps that symbolism from curdling into kitsch. It suggests reverence for the form and maybe even for the animals - the idea that you don't rush a living element into a polished commodity.

Context matters: Burton came up in an era when big illusion shows competed on spectacle, but he built a brand on classical precision. This quote protects that brand. It tells audiences the wonder is real not because it's supernatural, but because it's earned.

Quote Details

TopicPerseverance
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More Quotes by Lance Add to List
Lance Burton on the Dove Act and Craft of Magic
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About the Author

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Lance Burton (born March 10, 1960) is a Entertainer from USA.

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