It’s easy to tell magicians Penn & Teller apart: Penn is the tall one, Teller is the silent one. Penn likely didn’t have much choice when it came to his height (but hey, if he did, well done, sir), but Teller opted to stay mum even before he met the man who’d become his stage partner for four decades. In this video from Talks at Google, Teller explains why he first decided to do magic without ever saying a thing.

It’s an interesting peek at the way magicians think about interacting with the audience. Magic is more than just manipulating cards or making things disappear; you also have to take the audience on the journey with you, so they believe, just for a second, that you’ve done something miraculous. The more you can get the audience to do the work for you, the more they’ll believe.