Quotes from Gregory Colbert

When I started Ashes and Snow in 1992, I set out to explore the relationship between man and animals from the inside out.

We need to renegotiate our contract with nature. Ecology is a unifying force that can diminish intolerance and expand our empathy towards others - both human and animal.

If you look at Paleolithic cave paintings, you see how people were depicted inside nature, not outside it. It was a kind of dream time. That's what I'm exploring.

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

Is it only humans that look up with wonder at the stars and the vastness of the universe?

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Letter 1 To the princess of the elephants, I disappeared exactly one year ago. On that day I received a letter. It called me back to the place where my life with the elephants began Please forgive me, for the silence between us has been unbroken for one year. I will never be more of myself than in these letters. They are my maps of the bird path, and they are all that I know to be true.