122 Quotes by Peter Matthiessen

The Zen expression “Kill the Buddha!” means to kill any concept of the Buddha as something apart from oneself.

The concept of conservation is a far truer sign of civilization than that spoilation of a continent which we once confused with progress.

I can watch elephants (and elephants alone) for hours at a time, for sooner or later the elephant will do something very strange... There is mystery behind that masked gray visage, and ancient life force, delicate and mighty, awesome and enchanted, commanding the silence ordinarily reserved for mountain peaks, great fires, and the sea.

I like to hear and smell the countryside, the land that my characters inhabit. I don’t want these characters to step off the page, I want them to step out of the landscape.

If we were doomed to live forever, we would scarcely be aware of the beauty around us.

Simplicity is the whole secret of well-being.

Simultaneously I am myself, the child I was, the old man I will be.

For some time I watch the coming of the night? Above is the glistening galaxy of childhood, now hidden in the Western world by air pollution and the glare of artificial light; for my children's children, the power, peace and healing of the night will be obliterated.

How could I say that I wished to penetrate the secrets of the mountains in search of something still unknown that, like the yeti, might well be missed for the very fact of searching?