“Like water, I have no skin...only surface tension. (Gretel Ehrlich)” — Gretel Ehrlich Water Copy Share Image
Animals give us their constant, unjaded faces, and we burden them with our bodies and civilized ordeals. — Gretel Ehrlich Animal Copy Share Image
Am I like the optimist who, while falling ten stories from a building, says at each story, I'm all right so far? — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
I like big, open, spare landscapes. There's lots of room. Nobody bothers you... I feel as if I can think there. — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
“So much has broken away already, there is nothing to drink but air, nothing left to walk on but water, yet the… — Gretel Ehrlich Fasting Copy Share Image
There is nothing in nature that can't be taken as a sign of both mortality and invigoration. — Gretel Ehrlich Death Copy Share Image
History is an illogical record. It hinges on nothing. It is a story that changes, and has accidents, and recovers with scars. — Gretel Ehrlich Accidents Copy Share Image
To trace the history of a river . . . is to trace the history of the soul, the history of the… — Gretel Ehrlich Bodies of water Copy Share Image
What Flaubert refers to as the “mélancholies du voyage” is like the sadness I feel as one season departs and another arrives. — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
“Ranchers are midwives, hunters, nurturers, providers, and conservationists all at once. What we’ve interpreted as toughness—weathered skin, calloused hands, a squint in… — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
If anything is endemic to Wyoming it is wind. This big room of space is swept out daily, leaving a bone yard… — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
Autumn teaches us that fruition is also death; that ripeness is a form of decay. The willows, having stood for so long… — Gretel Ehrlich Autumn Copy Share Image
I understood why war zones are called 'theaters' because they frame a kind of play acting or, worse, deceit, that can stain… — Gretel Ehrlich Acting Copy Share Image
I designed furniture that pulled apart, folded, and broke down into neat stacks. Since arriving in California, I had moved four times… — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
“During the night, sheet lightning inlaid the walls with cool gold. I felt like an ancient, mummified child who had been found… — Gretel Ehrlich Death Copy Share Image
To rise above treeline is to go above thought, and after, the descent back into bird song, bog orchids, willows, and firs… — Gretel Ehrlich Bird Copy Share Image
“To yield is to be preserved whole. To be bent is to become straight. To be hollow is to be filled. To… — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
“When you’re riding, it should look like a bird flying,” Ray says, smiling. “Not a gut-shot bird … it should be smooth… — Gretel Ehrlich Bird flying Copy Share Image
All that's known is this: there is no central processor, no single computer. Nothing that simple. Millions of neurons process information simultaneously… — Gretel Ehrlich Ability Copy Share Image
Love life first, then march through the gates of each season; go inside nature and develop the discipline to stop destructive behavior;… — Gretel Ehrlich Animal Copy Share Image
June marked the end of spring on California's central coast and the beginning of five months of dormancy that often erupted in… — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
“What shocks me so is the detachment with which we dispense destruction -- not just bombs, but blows to the head of… — Gretel Ehrlich Destruction Copy Share Image
A black-crowned night heron stood on an apron of wet sand, looking across the channel. The feather plume at the back of… — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
Survival is as much a matter of grace as fight. The expression, 'grace under pressure' implies the attainment of equanimity and equilibrium.… — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
There was not one cause for our internment, but many - a deep-seated racial prejudice working on top of fear, distrust, and… — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
“That’s how summer is: no past or future but all present tense, long twilights like vandals, breaking into new days.” — Gretel Ehrlich Present tense Copy Share Image
“its cold immensity mocking us as we lunged away into the dark curvaceous violence of the sea.” — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
Honesty is stronger medicine than sympathy, which may console but often conceals. — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce. — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
“Islands are emblematic not only of solitude but of refuge and sanctuary, the way a small boat is an island in rough… — Gretel Ehrlich Rough seas Copy Share Image
To know something, then, we must be scrubbed raw, the fasting heart exposed. — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
A tree is an aerial garden, a botanical migration from the sea, from those earliest plants, the seaweeds; it is a purchase… — Gretel Ehrlich Copy Share Image
The truest art I would strive for in any work would be to give the page the same qualities as earth: weather… — Gretel Ehrlich Art Copy Share Image
