Cheating the Impossible Quotes

“The rest is usually just an inhuman amount of tenacious work.”
― Philippe Petit, Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist

“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.”
― Philippe Petit, Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist

“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.”
― Philippe Petit, Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist

“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.”
― Philippe Petit, Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist

“empowered by those values, when we soon encounter them as we develop, or when they keep crossing our paths as we grow old.”
― Philippe Petit, Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist

“forever. I would add to my reply as well, the borrowing of a simple invitation from the 13th-century English philosopher Roger Bacon: “Contemplate the world!” Because if we do not store in our heart a profound reverence for the miracles of nature as well as for the accomplishments of men and for their sometimes kind and illustrious way of thinking — even if our life is at its beginning and we have seen nothing yet; or if we’ve seen it all and find man evil — we will not be capable of recognizing those marvels, we will not be”
― Philippe Petit, Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist

“By the way, when the tongue is eager to meet an extraordinary wine, when the palate is in hope of being flooded with the sublime, the human jaws are not at will to clearly articulate the traditional “À vôtre santé!” Their impatience to start the drinking process produces a delightful elliptic version, heard constantly throughout wine-tasting cellars, that is: “À vôt’ santé!”
― Philippe Petit, Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist