Colette Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Hay que envejecer terriblemente para renunciar a la vanidad de vivir ante alguien

Humility has its origin in an awareness of unworthiness, and sometimes too in a dazzled awareness of saintliness.

You do not notice changes in what is always before you.

The world of the emotions that we so lightly call physical.

Le monde des èmotions qu’on nomme, á la lègére, physiques.

We only do well the things we like doing.

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.

For to dream and then to return to reality only means that our qualms suffer a change of place and significance.

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