Sidonie Gabrielle Colette Quotes

Perhaps the only misplaced curiosity is that which persists in trying to find out here, on this side of death, what lies beyond the grave.

Time spent with a cat is never wasted.

We only do well the things we like doing.

Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.

Look for a long time at what pleases you, and a longer time at what pains you.

A kindly gesture bestowed by us on an animal arouses prodigies of understanding and gratitude.

On this narrow planet, we have only the choice between two unknown worlds. One of them tempts us - ah! what a dream, to live in that! - the other stifles us at the first breath.

- and how time flies! What, has it already been twenty years, already forty years that we are together? Why, how terrible! We haven't yet said all we wanted to say to each other... May we have a little respite, or else may we be allowed to begin all over again!

I love my past, I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it.

By means of an image we are often able to hold on to our lost belongings. But it is the desperateness of losing which picks the flowers of memory, binds the bouquet.

If I can't have too many truffles, I'll do without truffles.

Hope costs nothing.

Among all the modernized aspects of the most luxurious of industries, the model, a vestige of voluptuous barbarianism, is like some plunder-laden prey. She is the object of unbridled regard, a living bait, the passive realization of an ideal. No other female occupation contains such potent impulses to moral disintegration as this one, applying as it does the outward signs of riches to a poor and beautiful girl.

Chance, my master and my friend, will, I feel sure, deign once again to send me the spirits of his unruly kingdom. All my trust is now in him- and in myself. But above all in him, for when I go under he always fishes me out, seizing and shaking me like a life-saving dog whose teeth tear my skin a little every time. So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.

I am going away with him to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart.

There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.

I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.

In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.

You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.

You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.

No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object.

On the first of May, with my comrades of the catechism class, I laid lilac, chamomile and rose before the altar of the Virgin, and returned full of pride to show my blessed posy. My mother laughed her irreverent laugh and, looking at my bunch of flowers, which was bringing the may-bug into the sitting-room right under the lamp, she said: Do you suppose it wasn't already blessed before?

The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.

A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.

In its early stages, insomnia is almost an oasis in which those who have to think or suffer darkly take refuge.

A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men...

To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.

But what is the heart, madame? It's worth less than people think. it's quite accommodating, it accepts anything. You give it whatever you have, it's not very particular. But the body... Ha! That's something else again! It has a cultivated taste, as they say, it knows what it wants. A heart doesn't choose, and one always ends up by loving.

It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.

The only virtue on which I pride myself is my self-doubt; when a writer loses her self-doubt, the time has come to lay aside her pen.

You don't think before you do something foolish. You do your thinking afterwards.

The faults of husbands are often caused by the excess virtues of their wives.

If he's getting married, he's not longer interesting.

It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts.

I want nothing from love, in short, but love.

No one asked you to be happy. Get to work.

By an image we hold on to our lost treasures, but it is the wrenching loss that forms the image, composes, binds the bouquet.

There are connoisseurs of blue just as there are connoisseurs of wine.

As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow.

What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.

My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.

I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering.

I've entered the world of wine without any professional training, but a definite appetite for good bottles.

A woman who thinks she is intelligent demands the same rights as man. An intelligent woman gives up.

Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette.

Jealousy is not at all low, but it catches us humbled and bowed down, at first sight.

Be happy. It's one way of being wise.