Right after my Twin Towers walk, I was approached by hundreds of people, and I said no to all the offers. I could have become a millionaire overnight, obviously, but I said no, and I continue to be uninterested.
From Philippe Petit
What I think tailors the creativity of most people are the rules that we learn from the age we are very small - in school, our parents.
I was thrown out of different schools because I was practicing my arts - magic, juggling, and the high wire.
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.
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.
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.
It is treacherous on a high wire to change your focus point and suddenly look down.
Art is maybe a subversive activity. There is a certain rebellion when you are an artist at heart, even if only in the art of living.
If I have to make a self-portrait, I would put poetry and rebellion on the list. To be able to walk on a wire, to be able to juggle six hoops, you need focus, another word for tenacity, which is passion.
When you are a young person, the world is yours. You can do the impossible.
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