Philippe Petit Quotes
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I did a walk in 1973 illegally in the northern side of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
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Obsessed people are not humorless at all.
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When a loved one disappears, you continue to live with the accompaniment of that person. One has to find a balance between joy and sorrow.
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You see, it's actually very good that a human activity is performed very close to death, because that's where life is. Life is, at its most valuable and most full, very close to the boundary of life.
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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.
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Many people use the words 'death defying' or 'death wishing' when they talk about wire-walking. Many people have asked me: 'So do you have a death wish?' After doing a beautiful walk, I feel like punching them in the nose. It's indecent. I have a life wish.
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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.
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I needed more knowledge in rigging and knotting. I started collecting books on knots and really learning more and more. That's how it started. And also in magic, of course. With a piece of rope, you can do magic.
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My first walk illegally at 20 years old was between the towers of Notre Dame.
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Of course, the slightest little mistake on the wire will deprive me of my life, so in that sense, yes, it is a dangerous profession. You have to pay attention; if not, you will lose your life.
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If you see how carefully I prepare for any kind of walk, legal or illegal, small or big, you will see that, actually, I narrow the unknown to virtually nothing. And that's when I am ready to walk on the wire.
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How could I share with you how I felt when two towers that I loved, two pieces of steel and glass and concrete fell down, when actually they took with them thousands of human lives? That is the actual tragedy. But those towers were almost human for me. I was in love with them, and that's why I married them with a tight rope.
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I started putting a wire up in secret and performing without permission. Notre Dame, the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the World Trade Center. And I developed a certitude, a faith that convinced me that I will get safely to the other side. If not, I will never do that first step.
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I, like everybody else, have a certain fear of heights, and I have to be very careful when I am in the clouds, but it is also what I love; it is my domain, so when you love something, you don't have fear.
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An intellectual challenge presents itself? I am in bliss. Instantly, it brings forth the notion of triumph.
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Talking about theater, actually, I built a little barn in upstate New York, and I call it 'the smallest theater in the world,' but it has a mini stage and a red velvet curtain.
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On a very long and very high wire, I will not hope to not be blown off by high winds. I will have the certitude that such could not happen.
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I've been arrested many times for illegal high wire walking and illegal street performing.
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Passion is the motto of all my actions.
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I've frowned at the idea of breaking records, the first one to do something, or do it longer, higher, more difficult.
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I love or hate things straight away. I like to go directly to action to see the result. I think I must be difficult, but at the same time, it's not for me to say.
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Fame was never something I was seeking in my artistic journey. It's to be used as a tool for an artist to break open doors and keep creating. That's how I enjoyed fame in '74; it was not just for the emptiness of being famous.