"If the snow leopard should manifest itself, then I am ready to see the snow leopard. if not, then somehow (and I don't understand this instinct, even now) I am not ready to perceive it, in the same way that I am not ready to resolve my koan; and in the not-seeing, I am content. I think I must be disappointed, having come so far, and yet I do not feelt hat way. I am disappointed, and also, I am not disappointed. That the snow leopard is, that it is here, that its frosty eyes watch us from the mountain--that is enough."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg.249)