Circus Performer Quotes

I think I'll be a clown when I get grown,' said Dill. Jem and I stopped in our tracks. Yes sir, a clown,' he said. 'There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.' You got it backwards, Dill,' said Jem. 'Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them.' Well I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.

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

Wire-walking in performance is one thing - I never fell, of course. If I had, I wouldn't be here talking about it.

A clown is like aspirin, only he works twice as fast.

I remember I had a boyfriend a long time ago who said, 'You need to change your name; you sound like a circus performer.'

I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.

I'm the first has-been star singer ever to sing with the circus. I mean, Presley sang with the circus, but that was before he became a star.

Who can take a single step with his head?

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.

The trapeze was my first love. To me, it's normal. It's all I've ever known. But when I see other people's upbringings, I think, 'Hmm... mine was rather unconventional. Quite different!'

I started performing in 1950 at the age of 16 when I joined the Burton Lester's Midgets as a performer. Shortly after, I became a DJ with Mecca Organization before joining Billy Smart's Circus as a clown and shadow Ringmaster.

I started off as a juggler. I used to do a half-hour show on the weekends to make money as a kid. Then I went to Cleveland, Ohio in 1983 to the international jugglers competition junior division and came second. So that was my first job, being a juggler.

Yorkie has officially retired about 5 times... The man's a clown... People are going on about the game and agents and directors of football and managers losing their jobs, but we should be worried about people like him... Clowns. That's the last time I'm going to say clown... If he's the vice-president of FIFA, God help us all.

Somebody said they seen her heading out of town, now she ran away with a rodeo clown.

I am a showman by profession... and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.

[My job is] a very high trapeze act, frequently with no net.

At Columbus Circle, a juggler wearing a trench cloak and top hat, who is usually at this location afternoons and who calls himself Stretch Man, performs in front of a small, uninterested crowd; though I smell prey, and he seems worthy of my wrath, I move on in search of a less dorky target. Though if he'd been a mime, odds are he'd already be dead.

I think I'll be a clown when I get grown.... There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.

I'm never going to be the lead actor guy. I'm real quiet and real happy and real fortunate to keep working. It's what I do. It's like the circus. I ran away and joined it a long time ago.

My contributions were many: First clown director, with witty sayings and flashily dressed, now called master of ceremonies.

If I was a freak of nature... Hell yeah I wanna do freak shows! I don't wanna be applying for jobs at the mall.

Everyone knows there's only one thing less welcome on a stage than a mime, and that's a clown, because everyone knows that clowns eat people.

I am not a circus performer.

When I was younger, I wanted to be a vet or a tightrope walker. But I have no sense of balance, and I can't bear animals dying, so I abandoned both ideas.

It would've been hard to do something else, to as it were, run away from the circus and become an accountant.