Quotes from Philippe Petit

It is very normal for people on the ground to look at somebody apparently walking in midair and thinking first that person is crazy and thinking secondly that person risks his or her life.

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.

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.

Life should be lived on the edge. 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.

It's impossible, that's for sure. So let's start working.

On one side, the mass of a mountain. A life I know. On the other, the universe of the clouds, so full of unknown that it seems empty to us. Too much space.

When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk!

When the towers again twin-tickle the clouds, I offer to walk again, to be the expression of the builder's collective voice. Together, we will rejoice in an aerial song of victory. I will carry my life across the wire, as your life, as all our lives, past, present, and future -the lives lost, the lives welcomed since. we can overcome.

Wirewalker, trust your feet! Let them lead you; they know the way.

I know it's impossible. But I know I'll do it!

Les limites existent seulement dans l'esprit de ceux qui ne savent pas rêver." (The limits exist only in the minds of those who can not dream)

There is no such thing as motivation in my world. I am not motivated to do what I do. As an artist, I am driven, I am compelled, I am thrust forward by a force so rooted inside me, so convincing, that it seems futile to try to explain it. Although it has a name: passion.

It cannot be done all at once. To overpower vertigo - the keeper of the abyss- one must tame it, cautiously.

My destiny no longer has me conquering the highest toowers in the world, but rather the void they protect. This cannot be measured.

If it's a problem of fire, fire might very well be the answer.

The rest is usually just an inhuman amount of tenacious work.

Would anyone but a crazed bicephalous being, half engineer, half poet, willingly shackle himself to a venture of such magnitude? I am prisoner of my dream.

Believe marvels exist around you, inside others, within yourself. Go search for them. Gallop through life and without dismounting your horse manage (like a Cossack!) to pick up bits of otherworldliness lying on the path. Feed your imagination that way. That way, shape your destiny.

The union of altitude and solitude fills me with an arrogant sense of ownership.

Limits exist only in the souls of those who do not dream.

Les limites existent seulement dans l'esprit de ceux qui ne savent pas rêver.

empowered by those values, when we soon encounter them as we develop, or when they keep crossing our paths as we grow old.

Therefore my advice would encompass the following nine commandments: Do not get used to a sole body language. Do not establish a doctrine. Surprise yourself. Dream in a loud voice. Invent. Keep diligent, mysterious and secret. Have a just and generous heart. Compassion, yes; but no remorse. Acquire a thirst for excellence.

And do not forget that the blood of rebellion flows through your veins, that around your soul meanders the river of perfection; above all stay devoted to your art — even if it is only the art of living! — above all remain loyal to it.