“My foot slips on a narrow ledge; in that split second, as needles of fear pierce heart and temples, eternity intersects with present time. Thought and action are not different, and stone, air, ice, sun, fear, and self are one.… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share Image
Alec Wilkinson is a spare, clear, and lucid writer who works in stylistic simplicity with material that is not simple at all. — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
Figures dark beneath their loads pass down the far bank of the river, rendered immortal by the streak of sunset upon their shoulders — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
The great stillness in these landscapes that once made me restless seeps into me day by day, and with it the unreasonable feeling that… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
“...experience was static in the valley; it was older than time itself, for time was a thing of but two generations, dated by moons… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
“The central feature of the practice of meditation and hard work known as Zen is that, as Matthiessen says, it “has no patience with… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
For some time I watch the coming of the night? Above is the glistening galaxy of childhood, now hidden in the Western world by… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
“Nonfiction at its best is like fashioning a cabinet. It can be elegant and very beautiful but it can never be sculpture. Captive to… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
Soon the child’s clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions, and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
“In the book of Job, the Lord demands, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” “I was there!”-surely that is… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
I meditate for the last time on this mountain that is bare, though others all around are white with snow. Like the bare peak… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
I was just very interested in the American frontier and the growth of capitalism - those enormous fortunes that were being made, more often… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
“A far cicada rings high and clear over the river’s heavy wash. Morning glory, a lone dandelion, cassia, orchids. So far from the nearest… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
I ... had what Kierkegaard called 'the sickness of infinitude,' wandering from one path to another with no real recognition that I was embarked… — Peter Matthiessen Copy Share
