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It is said in Java that the tiger's hearing is so acute that hunters must keep their nose hairs cut lest the tiger hear the breath whistle through their nostrils.

Peter Matthiessen

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Peter Matthiessen
Age: 86 †
Born: 1927
Born: May 22
Died: 2014
Died: April 5
Author
Historian
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Cutting
Lest
Listening
Tigers
Hair
Hunters
Nostrils
Hear
Nose
Java
Keep
Noses
Hairs
Must
Breath
Whistle
Breaths
Acute
Hearing
Tiger

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The great stillness in these landscapes that once made me restless seeps into me day by day, and with it the unreasonable feeling that I have found what I was searching for without ever having discovered what it was.
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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.
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I ... had what Kierkegaard called 'the sickness of infinitude,' wandering from one path to another with no real recognition that I was embarked upon a search, and scarcely a clue as to what I might be after. I only knew that at the bottom of each breath there was a hollow place that needed to be filled.
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