Philippe Petit Wire Quotations

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.

I am the poet of the high wire - I never do stunts; I do theatrical performances.

The wire is a safe place for me to be. The street is not. Life is not. It's a rigorous and simple path. It's straight. You don't have meanders like, you know, on the ground, in life.

My parents were intelligent and encouraging, but at the same time, they were displeased at me becoming a wandering troubadour and wire walker.

It's very easy to walk on a wire if you spend a whole lifetime practicing for it.

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.

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.

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.

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 rendezvous with the long wire and perform the 'torero walk', gliding my feet, holding the pole away from my body, head high.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I've been arrested many times for illegal high wire walking and illegal street performing.

I walk on the wire; it's my profession, and there are no two high wire walks alike.

As a high wire walker, I do not allow myself to 'leave the wire' during a performance.

It is treacherous on a high wire to change your focus point and suddenly look down.

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.