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Colette
41 quotes
“When she raises her eyelids it's as if she were taking off all her clothes.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Claudine and Annie (1903)
“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.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Freedom (1908)
“Nothing ages a woman like living in the country.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: L'Envers du music hall (Music Hall Sidelights), "On Tour" (1913)
“Life as a child and then as a girl had taught her patience, hope, silence; and given her a prisoner's proficiency in handling these virtues as weapons.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chéri (1920), pt. 2 (tr. )
“Let’s go out and buy playing-cards, good wine, bridge-scorers, knitting needles—all the paraphernalia to fill a gaping void, all that’s required to disguise that monster, an old woman.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chéri (1920) (tr. Roger Senhouse)
“It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: My Mother’s House, "The Priest on the Wall" (1922)
“Le monde des èmotions qu’on nomme, á la lègére, physiques.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Le Blè en herbe (The Immature Grain) (1923), p. 161
“I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: La Fin de Chéri (The Last of Cheri) (1926) (tr. Roger Senhouse)
“If one wished to be perfectly sincere, one would have to admit there are two kinds of love—well-fed and ill-fed. The rest is pure fiction.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: La Fin de Chéri (The Last of Cheri) (1926) (tr. Roger Senhouse)
“My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Break of Day (1928)
“Can it be that chance has made me one of those women so immersed in one man that, whether they are barren or not, they carry with them to the grave the shrivelled innocence of an old maid?”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sido (1929)
“We only do well the things we like doing.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prisons and Paradise (1932)
“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.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mes Apprentissages (1936)
“You do not notice changes in what is always before you.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mes Apprentissages (1936)
“But just as delicate fare does not stop you from craving for saveloys, so tried and exquisite friendship does not take away your taste for something new and dubious.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chambre d’Hôtel, "The Rainy Moon" (1940)
“The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Paris From My Window (1944)
“To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Paris From My Window (1944)
“The day after that wedding night I found that a distance of a thousand miles, abyss and discovery and irremediable metamorphosis, separated me from the day before.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Noces (1945)
“Total absence of humor renders life impossible.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chance Acquaintances (1952)
“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: New York World-Telegram and Sun (1961)
“The writer who loses his self-doubt, who gives way as he grows old to a sudden euphoria, to prolixity, should stop writing immediately: the time has come for him to lay aside his pen.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on being elected to the Belgian Academy, as quoted in “Lady of Letters” Pt. 4, Earthly Paradise (1966) ed. Robert Phelps
“Humility has its origin in an awareness of unworthiness, and sometimes too in a dazzled awareness of saintliness.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on being elected to the Belgian Academy, as quoted in “Lady of Letters” Pt. 4, Earthly Paradise (1966) ed. Robert Phelps
“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.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on being elected to the Belgian Academy, as quoted in “Lady of Letters” Pt. 4, Earthly Paradise (autobiography, 1966) ed. Robert Phelps
“There is no need to waste pity on young girls who are having their moments of disillusionment, for in another moment they will recover their illusion.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wedding Day”, Earthly Paradise (1966) ed. Robert Phelps
“What a delight it is to make friends with someone you have despised!”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sido and I”, Earthly Paradise (1966) ed. Robert Phelps
“It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts. After death they take on a firmer outline and then cease to change.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Captain", Earthly Paradise (1966) ed. Robert Phelps
“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.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The South of France”, Earthly Paradise (1966) ed. Robert Phelps
“It’s nothing to be born ugly. Sensibly, the ugly woman comes to terms with her ugliness and exploits it as a grace of nature. To become ugly means the beginning of a calamity, self-willed most of the time.”
Colette (1873–1954) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journey for Myself (1971) “Beauties,” Quatre Saisons (c. 1928).
“For to dream and then to return to reality only means that our qualms suffer a change of place and significance.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In Gigi, and Selected Writings (1963).
“It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whether you are dealing with an animal or a child, to convince is to weaken.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: “It’s four o’clock … At five I have my abyss.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don’t ever wear artistic jewellry; it wrecks a woman’s reputation.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Boredom helps one to make decisions.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men... nine men out of ten are superstitious, nineteen out of twenty believe in the evil eye, and ninety-eight out of a hundred are afraid of spiders. They forgive us — oh! for many things, but not for the absence in us of their own feelings.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kiki-The-Demure: Once when I was little She tried to give me castor oil. I scratched and bit her so, she never tried again. Ha! She must have thought she held the devil between her knees. I squirmed, blew fire through my nostrils, multiplied my twenty claws by a hundred, my teeth by one thousand, and finally — disappeared as if by magic. Toby-Dog: I wouldn't dare do that. You see, I love her. I love her enough to forgive her even the torture of the bath.”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Toby-Dog: It seems to me that of the two of us it's you they make the most of, and yet you do all the grumbling. Kiki-The-Demure: A dog's logic, that! The more one gives the more I demand. Toby-Dog: That's wrong. It's indiscreet. Kiki-The-Demure: Not at all. I have a right to everything. Toby-Dog: To everything? And I? Kiki-The-Demure: I don't imagine you lack anything, do you? Toby-Dog: Ah, I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come... Kiki-The-Demure: And then what dreadful thing happens? Toby-Dog: You know very well! Inevitably, at that moment She appears, carrying a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it — Castor Oil!”
Colette (1873–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source