Philippe Petit Quotes
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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.
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There was a time when fire and story would fall asleep in unison. It was dream time.
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When art in general, and film in particular, succeeds is when it pulls you away onto a voyage. Then it's a good film.
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I started making monkey bridges, like kids do, and climbing and rappelling with ropes. Very naturally, I needed some knots. At the very beginning, I didn't care, I didn't know, and then slowly I started to know, and I started to care. I wanted to know more knots or the right knot for the special action.
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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.
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Usually, when I walk on a wire, I inspect the anchor point on both sides before crossing.
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Everybody wanted me to be rich and famous on my art. And I said no to all the commercials and all the seedy offers.
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It is treacherous on a high wire to change your focus point and suddenly look down.
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When I was learning by myself, despite my parents, despite my teachers, despite society, when I was fighting for building my life as a young wire walker at age 16, I didn't have feelings, I had certainties.
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I was in art school once a week from six to 16, which was essential in shaping my artistic sensitivity.
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There is a child inside me that wants to come out and do something to surprise all the adults.
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I am not up there by chance. I am there by choice. And I know the wire. And I know my limits. And I am a madman of details.
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It would be very, very dangerous for a wire walker to experience fear while he is balancing on the wire. Fear has its place on earth, before and maybe after a high-wire walk, but not during for me.
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I started very early, from five or six years old, to climb. To climb trees, to climb rocks everywhere I could. At some point, of course, I used a rope.
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I have been performing in the street for more than 50 years: magic for basically 60 years, and the high wire 45 years. The beauty of it is that it's never the same. It's never easy. And yet, part of my art is to make it look easy.
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This moment where we think we rest, when the brain is floating, you know, in sleep, is actually a moment where I could be very creative in a very strange, uncontrolled way.
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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.
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I was not born into the world of the stuntman and the daredevil; I was born into the world of theater and writing and sculpting and classical music.
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If a leaf fell from a tree, I'd stop juggling and play with the leaf. I went to my prop bag and got a little bandage and stuck the leaf back on the tree. People loved it.
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If I had been born in the circus, my parents would have pushed me on that little high wire at four years old. That's when the body is most limber to learn those acrobatics.
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To be able to create fully, it's maybe fine that you learn the rules, but you have to forget and to rebel against those rules.
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When you are a young person, the world is yours. You can do the impossible.
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I am the poet of the high wire - I never do stunts; I do theatrical performances.
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I am a thief of knowledge, and in a survival way, I had to solve all the problems around me.