Gregory Colbert Quotes

My imagination has always been inspired by nature's vision

Letter 74

I still have the first letter that you wrote to me. I carry it with me like a garden in my pocket.

If you come to me at this moment
your minutes will become hours
your hours will become days
and your days will become a lifetime.

I am never sure if I am reading the letter or the letter is reading me.

When I started Ashes and Snow in 1992, I set out to explore the relationship between man and animals from the inside out. In discovering the shared language and poetic sensibilities of all animals, I am working towards restoring the common ground that once existed when people lived in harmony with animals.

Letter 4

As I lay dreaming, Montezuma introduced himself and put his hand on my shoulder. The palm of the Aztec king felt like ancient papyrus.
When I looked up at him, I saw that his nose was chipped like that of a sphinx. His arms were like long ivory ropes that frayed into hands.
He led me down to the river, where we sat together and shared the river's silence. Then he spoke:
„Allow me to tell you my story. It may help you understand your own.
At dusk, in the year of one thousand rivers, the Spanish explorer Cortés arrived at the gates of my city. I welcomed him with open arms.
I showed Cortés hundreds of aviaries that had built in the city, and finally I took him to the most aviary of sighs. These birds carried only love letters.
Cortes laughed and said that all the bird songs made him feel like a virgin bride who is drunk with faith as she walks down the aisle of the church. On her wedding night, she undresses for her husband and he takes her in his arms. She believes everything is possible.
When Cortés stared straight into my eyes and said 'It is a night that is always colored in blood'." He paused for a long time before he spoke. Then he said, „Cortés returned with a small army of soldiers on horseback. When they ransacked the city, I was Cortes's own hand that lit the torch that set fire to the aviary of sighs.
The fires raged. The birds painted the blue sky black with the ashes of their wings. The gardens were redde

Letter 17


Morning. The snow was falling outside. There was a white silence.
My mother and I sat facing my father at the dining room table.

There was something impenetrable about his gaze. It was like pack ice.

And the ice was thickening.

I could barely see into him.

I knew.
And they knew that I knew.

He was broken.

I did not even need to look at him.

I could feel his brokenness all thorough the room.

I spent all my time at school in the library. Bad teachers can teach you to learn on your own.

The whales do not sing because they have an answer, they sing because they have a song.

I have invented nothing. I have simply documented a magical alchemy that I want to share.

Letter 90


When I used to sit up late at night writing in our bed, I was calmed by the sound of your breathing. I would hold my breath and watch your chest rise and fall. I felt like a blind man soothed by the scents and sounds of a garden.

As I lie here in bed writing this letter, there is only the sound of my own breathing.

When I hold my breath, there is only silence.

Tonight I feel like a miner being lowered farther and farther into a dark mine shaft, longing for the scents and the sounds of a garden.

Letter 84


An elephant with his trunk raised is a ladder to the stars.

A breaching whale is a ladder to the bottom of the sea.

My photographs are a ladder to my dreams.

These letters are ladders to you.

The stars you see at night are the unblinking eyes of sleeping elephants, who sleep with one eye open to best keep watch over us.

Every culture from the Egyptians to the Mayans to the American Indians to the Bedouins created bestiaries that enabled them to express their relationship with nature. Ashes and Snow is a 21st-century bestiary filled with species from around the world. Nature's orchestra includes not just Homo sapiens but elephants, whales, manatees, eagles, cheetahs, orangutans, and many others.

Letter 68


A pod of whales was lying like long reclining Buddhas on the sea.
My sister and I put our ears to the bottom of the boat so we could listen to their songs.

We turned to my grandfather and asked, "What do their song mean?"

"The whales do not sing because they have an answer," he said.
"They sing because they have a song.

Feather to fire,fire to blood
Blood to bone,bone to marrow
Marrow to ashes,ashes to snow