I keep saying I am an auto-didact, but I have a lot of outside influences. One I could cite is juggler Francis Brunn, who was the first man to throw ten rings in the air; he was really an amazing juggler who showed onstage the quest for perfection.

I love or hate things straight away. I like to go directly to action to see the result. I think I must be difficult, but at the same time, it's not for me to say.

There is a child inside me that wants to come out and do something to surprise all the adults.

When a loved one disappears, you continue to live with the accompaniment of that person. One has to find a balance between joy and sorrow.

Passion is the motto of all my actions.

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.

How could I share with you how I felt when two towers that I loved, two pieces of steel and glass and concrete fell down, when actually they took with them thousands of human lives? That is the actual tragedy. But those towers were almost human for me. I was in love with them, and that's why I married them with a tight rope.

You see, it's actually very good that a human activity is performed very close to death, because that's where life is. Life is, at its most valuable and most full, very close to the boundary of life.

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.

If you see how carefully I prepare for any kind of walk, legal or illegal, small or big, you will see that, actually, I narrow the unknown to virtually nothing. And that's when I am ready to walk on the wire.

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.

On the high wire, within months, I'm able to master all the tricks they do in the circus, except I am not satisfied.

I was in art school once a week from six to 16, which was essential in shaping my artistic sensitivity.

I've frowned at the idea of breaking records, the first one to do something, or do it longer, higher, more difficult.

Everybody wanted me to be rich and famous on my art. And I said no to all the commercials and all the seedy offers.

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

As I'm studying magic, juggling is mentioned repeatedly as a great way to acquire dexterity and coordination. Now, I had long admired how fast and fluidly jugglers make objects fly. So that's it. I'm 14; I'm becoming a juggler.

If a leaf fell from a tree, I'd stop juggling and play with the leaf. I went to my prop bag and got a little bandage and stuck the leaf back on the tree. People loved it.

I, like everybody else, have a certain fear of heights, and I have to be very careful when I am in the clouds, but it is also what I love; it is my domain, so when you love something, you don't have fear.

An intellectual challenge presents itself? I am in bliss. Instantly, it brings forth the notion of triumph.

Fame was never something I was seeking in my artistic journey. It's to be used as a tool for an artist to break open doors and keep creating. That's how I enjoyed fame in '74; it was not just for the emptiness of being famous.

Truly, from a very early age, I started distancing myself from other kids, not out of willingness, but just out of the nature of my energy. I liked to do things solely, and I already had a taste of the quest for perfection, which is unusual in a little kid.

This moment where we think we rest, when the brain is floating, you know, in sleep, is actually a moment where I could be very creative in a very strange, uncontrolled way.

I hate all electronic things that are supposed to help the human being. You don't smell, you don't hear, you don't touch anymore.