Philippe Petit
It's part of my life to feel like a criminal, to have eyes in my back and see if I'm being followed. It's a feeling that comes from street juggling because I have been arrested so many times.
It is treacherous on a high wire to change your focus point and suddenly look down.
I would not describe my personality. And I think when you describe people, you are making a mistake. That's not how they are; that's how you perceive them at that moment. It's limiting in front of something that is magnificent and unlimited: life.
If I have to make a self-portrait, I would put poetry and rebellion on the list. To be able to walk on a wire, to be able to juggle six hoops, you need focus, another word for tenacity, which is passion.
For years, I have been working on crossing the Grand Canyon. Actually, there is nobody who says 'no,' but since this is a project that comes from me and not a commission, I have to find the money, plan the logistics, etcetera.
When you are a young person, the world is yours. You can do the impossible.
I will never fall prey to celebrity because I am too busy. I have other things to do than look at myself in the mirror.
My time is always divided when I prepare for a wire walk. First I dream, technically and artistically, and then I go to work, and I am the master rigger, climbing trees and ladders and constructing. Only then I change my cap and become the performer.
I was born in a world of opera, theatre, films, poetry, art, and therefore, out of the wire, I made a stage. That's why they call me a high wire artist.
Notre Dame and Sydney - that was nothing. Notre Dame doesn't have a police station; it is not 1,000 or so feet high. It was a public structure, very easy to access. And Sydney Harbour Bridge was half-and-half: a bridge, in the middle of the night. The World Trade Center was the end of the world. Electronic devices, police dogs.
Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge - and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope.Collection: Exercise
I don't have a career, I have a life. Don't think of a career, think about your passion and look for inspiration.Collection: Inspiration
Limits exist only in the souls of those who do not dream.Collection: Dream
It's impossible, that's for sure. So let's start working.Collection: Leadership
You must not fall. / When you lose your balance, resist for a long time before turning yourself toward the earth. Then jump. / You must not force yourself to stay steady. You must move forward.Collection: Moving
Whenever other worlds invite us, whenever we are balancing on the boundaries of our limited human condition, that’s where life starts, that’s where you start feeling yourself living.Collection: Other Worlds
I don't like to risk my life, so I prepare sometimes for months or sometimes for years. But sometimes after a walk, I look what I have done, and I have a little bit of fear coming to me, just looking at pictures.Collection: Years
I know it's impossible. But I know I'll do it!Collection: Impossible
Passion is the model of all my actions.Collection: Life
Life should be lived on the edge of life.Collection: Existential
The essential thing is to etch movements in the sky, movements so still they leave no trace. The essential thing is simplicity. / That is why the long path to perfection is horizontal.Collection: Journey
For me, when I am on the wire, I do not have a problem of eliminating or blocking fear. I do not really feel fear, although it is a fearful activity to walk in thin air, as I do without any safety device, but I am not fearful.Collection: Block
You can always find a way to do something. Now, of course, when I do the action, it's an action that inspires people, it's a gift to people, it's not the other way around, I do not take something, I do not hurt people. Yes, I think today would be more than impossible and yet part of me would think that I continue to think that nothing is impossible.Collection: Hurt
Why does almost every ad agency in the world set the time on a watch at 10:10 before photographing it?Collection: Agency
I usually practice on a small, low wire, that features the predominant wind. I study the meteorology of the place at the time that I am supposed to do my walk, and then I find the predominant direction and velocity of the wind and I train to fight that wind.Collection: Fighting
Death frames the high wire. But I don’t see myself as taking risks. I do all of the preparations that a non-death seeker would do.Collection: Risk
I am very attracted by the mysterious landscape of Easter Island. Not only because it is a piece of land that is further away from another, but also because of the beautiful statues of Moai that are there. To do a beautiful walk there, I would have to involve the Moai, and the Rapa Nui people who live on the island.Collection: Beautiful
If I die, what a beautiful death.Collection: Beautiful
Improvisation is empowering because it welcomes the unknown. And since what's impossible is always unknown, it allows me to believe I can cheat the impossible.Collection: Motivation
I have walked many times around the world and each time it's different from the last one. It feels a little bit like I am a theatrical director, creating a theatre in space. It's really a theater in the sky. But of course the World Trade Center is certainly the most well-known of my productions.Collection: Sky
The practical answer is, no it would be totally impossible for young or foreign people to get access to roof of a building that stands in the heart of a giant city and to put a cable across.Collection: Heart
Wirewalker, trust your feet! Let them lead you; they know the way.Collection: Feet
I am very sensitive to all form of music, painting, sculpting, dancing, and I love cinema also. For example if I look at the work of the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, who happens to be a friend of mine, everything he does is inspiring to me.Collection: Dancing
If I look at the performance of another friend Sting, whenever I hear him take over a stage and share his art with millions, it's very inspiring to me. So I have a lot in my life, a lot of friends who inspire me and I'm sure it goes the other way around, or so that I inspire them.Collection: Art
When I perform outside, the major problem that could arise is strong wind.I spend months preparing for the types of wind that occur in different locations.Collection: Strong