Philippe Petit

“I hate all electronic things that are supposed to help the human being. You don't smell, you don't hear, you don't touch anymore.”

“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.”

“Metaphorically speaking, of course, if I put a problem behind my pillow and fall asleep, very often because my brain went to sleep with that idea or the problem alive, very often in the middle of the night I wake up, and I wake up with a solution or with a direction of solution.”

“I'm a wire-walker, but actually, I'm a moviemaker that hasn't done his first movie.”

“I am a thief of knowledge, and in a survival way, I had to solve all the problems around me.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“There was a time when fire and story would fall asleep in unison. It was dream time.”

“I am fascinated by the engineering. The science of constructing and understanding why it stands. And I am drawn by the madness, the beauty, the theatricality, the poetry and soul of the wire. And you cannot be a wire-walker without mingling those two ways of seeing life.”

“As I'm studying magic, juggling is mentioned repeatedly as a great way to acquire dexterity and coordination. Now, I had long admired how fast and fluidly jugglers make objects fly. So that's it. I'm 14; I'm becoming a juggler.”

“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.”

“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.”

“On the high wire, within months, I'm able to master all the tricks they do in the circus, except I am not satisfied.”

“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.”

“There is a child inside me that wants to come out and do something to surprise all the adults.”

“Everybody wanted me to be rich and famous on my art. And I said no to all the commercials and all the seedy offers.”

“For me, since I have a life wish, not a death wish, for me, I was not gambling my life. I was doing something much more beautiful. I was carrying my life across.”

“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.”

“I have a fear of water, believe it or not. To put a wire 12 feet over a swimming pool frightens me. I don't like water.”