Colette Quotes

125 Sourced Quotes

Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower, nor is modesty either.

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

Colette
Poetry does not necessarily have to be beautiful to stick in the depths of our memory...

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

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

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

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

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

Colette
It was on that road and at that hour that I first became aware of my own self, experienced an inexpressible state of grace, and felt one with the first breath of air that stirred, the first bird, and the sun so newly born that it still looked not quite round.

Colette
The telephone shone as brightly as a weapon kept polished by daily use.

Colette
When she raises her eyelids it's as if she were taking off all her clothes.

Colette
Love comes disguised as a thunderbolt and often vanishes at the same pace.

Colette
For words are wearisome and worn, while the arabesques of music are forever new.

Colette
I am never completely unhappy, because I ask so little of life... You can't imagine how little it takes to satisfy me.

Colette
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
The world of the emotions that are so lightly called physical.

Colette
Whether you are dealing with an animal or a child, to convince is to weaken.

Colette
Writing is often wasteful. If I counted the pages I've torn up, of how many volumes am I the author?

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

Colette
But once I had set out, I was already far on my way.

Colette
It is man who has affixed the word 'wild' to the name animal.

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

Colette
What an interesting life I had. And how I wish I had realized it sooner!

Colette