Gregory Colbert Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 17 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Gregory Colbert.
Famous Quotes By Gregory Colbert
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. — Gregory Colbert
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. — Gregory Colbert
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. — Gregory Colbert
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. — Gregory Colbert
Is it only humans that look up with wonder at the stars and the vastness of the universe? — Gregory Colbert
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. — Gregory Colbert
I spent all my time at school in the library. Bad teachers can teach you to learn on your own. — Gregory Colbert
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. — Gregory Colbert
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. — Gregory Colbert
The whales do not sing because they have an answer, they sing because they have a song. — Gregory Colbert
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. — Gregory Colbert
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. — 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. 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. — Gregory Colbert
I have invented nothing. I have simply documented a magical alchemy that I want to share. — Gregory Colbert
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. — Gregory Colbert
Feather to fire,fire to blood
Blood to bone,bone to marrow
Marrow to ashes,ashes to snow — Gregory Colbert
My imagination has always been inspired by nature's vision — Gregory Colbert