Tightrope Walking Quotes

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.

Kat had been picking things up since her third birthday, when Hamish and Angus's father took them all to the circus because he needed to "borrow" an elephant.

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.

I'm very influenced by the circus. A lot of the dreams that I have, I'm in the circus.

It's very normal - when you're not used to the world of the high wire, it's very normal to be simply terrified. The reason I'm not is because I've done it for so many years.

The essence of show business is, if you see a tight-rope walker go across a tight rope, everybody claps. But, if you see him wobble, everybody gasps.

Usually, when I walk on a wire, I inspect the anchor point on both sides before crossing.

There is always a chance of failure, of producing something totally unnecessary. But I guess that chance of failure is what makes tightrope walking, race-car driving.

I'm often very relaxed when I'm on the wire.

In high drama or high tragedy or anything, it's not really human unless there's some humor at the same time. And vice versa. So I guess I tend to gravitate towards projects which tread a dodgy tightrope between two things, which aren't really one or another.

Living in a community with very wounded people, I came to see that I had lived most of my life as a tightrope artist trying to walk on a high, thin cable from one tower to the other, always waiting for the applause when I had not fallen off and broken my leg.

Most of my life, I feel I have been Unicycling at the Edge of the Abyss! If fact, this will be the name of my book if I ever write one, or a one man stand up routine. I have used it as the name of a collection of my musical compositions written during the '90s. It fits the scary journey I feel I've been on.

I started walking a wire when I was 2 years old, and this has been a dream of mine to recreate this walk.

I never got to see the circus... I was always in love with being a trapeze artist, though.

Being in a foreign country means walking a tightrope high above the ground without the net afforded a person by the country where he has his family, colleagues, and friends, and where he can easily say what he has to say in a language he has known from childhood.

Nik Wallenda and his family are legendary.

The very first time I went to Madison Square Garden, I went to see the circus.

The circus tent was flowing pale in the rain like a fleshy flower lit from within. It seemed to bloom in the downpour. Drops of rain caught on Rafe's eyelashes, blinding him as the circus light struck them. He groped for the flap, that slit in the fabric that would reveal her to him. She was on the rope again, her skirt flashing with tiny mirrors, hair braided with petals. He looked up at her, dizzy with it, seeing her face framed in the parasol. There were bluish shadows around her eyes.

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

I can get onstage and cut that off and be superinstinctive. To be a good live performer, you have to be instinctive. It's like, to walk in the jungle, or to do anything where there's a certain tightrope wire aspect you need to be instinctive. And you have to be comfortable at it also.

The storytelling in a movie is in the cut; it's in the edit. It's not an actor's job, really. Your job is such a tiny little thing, and I love the feeling of juggling or tightrope walking.

I usually practice on a small, low wire, that features the predominant wind. I study the meteorology of the place at the time that I am supposed to do my walk, and then I find the predominant direction and velocity of the wind and I train to fight that wind.

I walked on a high wire at Battersea power station for Comic Relief in 2011. It was the scariest but the most exciting moment. I hated being on it but as soon as I stepped off I was desperate to get back on and do it again!

I used to take circus lessons. I dreamt of being picked up in the street because they saw me doing something circus-like.