Ashes And Snow Quotes & Sayings

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

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

Congratulations, everyone," I announce as I open the door to Noam's study. "You've finally broken Meira, the crazy, orphaned soldier-girl. She's snapped, all thanks to the mention of floral arrangements. — Sara Raasch

A Winterian wielding an Autumnian weapon, using Cordellan allegiance to bring Spring crumbling down. — Sara Raasch

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

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes - or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, Lighting a little hour or two - is gone. — Omar Khayyam

I want to be someone worthy of my kingdom. I want to be someone worthy of /you/. — Sara Raasch

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

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

You've always been /everything/ to me. I didn't know how to handle how much I needed you growing up---snow, I still don't, all right? — Sara Raasch

An earth hard as iron lay locked beneath a sky whose mottled clouds spit snow like ashes sucked up a chimney and then dispersed with the smoke. — John Updike

He reached forward then took me in his arms, held me close for a moment, the breath of snow and ashes cold around us. Then he kissed me, released me, and I took a deep breath of cold air, harsh with the scent of burning. — Diana Gabaldon

Who will you be when faced with the end?
The end of a kingdom,
The end of good men,
Will you run?
Will you hide?
Or will you hunt down evil with a venomous pride?

Rise to the ashes,
Rise to the winter sky,
Rise to the calling,
Make heard the battle cry.
Let it scream from the mountains
From the forest to the chapel,
Because death is a hungry mouth
And you are the apple.

So who will you be when faced with the end?
When the vultures are circling
And the shadows descend
Will you cower?
Or will you fight?
Is your heart made of glass?
Or a pure Snow White? — Lily Blake

Mather smiles at me through it, some of his tension softening before he drops his head in a small bow. "My queen," he says in response. — Sara Raasch

Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowflake. — Sara Raasch

Said a sheet of snow-white paper, "Pure was I created, and pure will I remain forever. I would rather be burnt and turn to white ashes than suffer darkness to touch me or the unclean to come near me." The ink-bottle heard what the paper was saying, and it laughed in its dark heart; but it never dared to approach her. And the multicoloured pencils heard her also, and they too never came near her. And the snow-white sheet of paper did remain pure and chaste forever, pure and chaste - and empty. — Kahlil Gibran

You may be able to look beyond the reality of our situation and imagine some other outcome, but all I ever saw, all I ever see, is a reminder that our lives aren't our own. — Sara Raasch

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

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

When I die, nieces, I want to be cremated, my ashes taken up in a bush plane and sprinkled onto the people in town below. Let them think my body is snowflakes, sticking in their hair and on their shoulders like dandruff. — Joseph Boyden