Click here to read Shepherd Project’s discussion of The Walk.
Philippe: Why? That is the question people ask me most. … Why do you walk on the wire? To tempt fate? To risk death? … I never think of it that way. For me, I use the word “life”.
Dad: My son, the circus clown.
Rudy: Performer must have an honest respect and gratitude for the audience.
Philippe: Why? I am the one up on the wire.
Philippe: I am not a circus performance performer. I am an artiste!
Philippe: My dream: to be the most glorious high wire walker in history.
Jean Louis: All artists are anarchists to some degree, do you agree?
Jean Louis: If that were to happen during your artistic coups, you would be the artistic disaster of the century.
Rudy: NEVER step on a wire if you haven’t checked all of the rigging yourself.
Rudy: Most wire walkers, they die when they arrive. They think they have arrived. [But they have not.] They have three steps left.
Philippe, about his first trip to the top of the Twin Towers: Nothing stops me and I find myself on an island, floating in mid-air on the edge of the void.
Philippe: It’s impossible. I’ll do it.
Philippe: Yes, it’s madness. No one in his right mind would ever attempt this. So yes, I am mad.
Philippe about a safety wire: I will never do this! If I do the walk with a safety line, it becomes meaningless. Nothing. A walk like a coward.
Philippe, quoting Rudy: You cannot lie on stage. The audience will always know what is inside your heart.
Jean Louis, about Jeff: He’s also afraid of heights.
Philippe: Perfect. And I am terrified of algebra.
Philippe: Why are you shaking?
Jeff: I told you I was afraid of heights.
Philippe: At this height?
Jeff: I’m afraid of a step ladder.
Philippe: I lost my costume! The biggest stage of my life and I lost my costume!
Jeff: What should we do?
Philippe: Ok. We do it. I will work in this ridiculous under shirt.
Philippe, upon going out on the wire: Jeff no longer existed. The towers were deserted and I no longer heed the sounds of New York. Everything feel silent. All I could see was the wire, floating out in a straight line to infinity and if I were to shift my weight, I would become a wire walker.
Philippe: As soon as my entire weight is on the cable, I feel a feeling I know by heart, I feel the wire supporting me.
Philippe: I had finished my crossing. The coups was over, but I looked over at the South Tower and it was still calling to me.
Philippe: [For the first time,] I feel truly grateful. I salute the wire, then I salute the towers, then I salute the great city of New York.
Philippe: Suddenly, I’m invaded by doubts. What if my wire is tired with supporting me? What if the towers are tired of my weight… I can’t end my walk in doubt…with hanging shoulders… I decide I will only leave my tower and my wire in victory.
Philippe, before he gets taken by the police: My name is Philippe Petit. I’m a wire walker!
Policeman: I gotta tell ya, what you did was something. I know I’ll never see anything like that in my life again. Good job.
News: The world would like to know why.
JP?: We did it! We showed the world that anything is possible.
Barry?: They’re different.
JP?: They’re different because you walked on them.
Barry?: People say they love the towers now.
Annie: Perhaps they are different because you’ve brought them to life, given them a soul.
Annie: You’ve accomplished your dream. It’s time for me to find mine.
Philippe: These passes, they have a date on them when they expire, but mine doesn’t. Tozolli, he crossed out the date. He wrote on it, “forever.”