Colette Quotes

125 Sourced Quotes

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
I am just over an attack of grippe-bronchitis, very unpleasant at my ages (I have two or three).

Colette
I look like a discouraged beetle battered by the rains of a spring night. I look like a moulting bird. I look like a governess in distress. I look — Good Lord, I look like an actress on tour, and that speaks for itself.

Colette
Her childhood, then her adolescence, had taught her patience, hope, silence and the easy manipulation of the weapons and virtues of all prisoners.

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

Colette
Confronted with a film, the child hardly thinks at all... faced with some confused activity where human movement has pride of place. The beating of the heart, the to-and-fro of the eyes, supplant thought while the screen is showing the hero pursued by kidnappers or murderers and revolver shots explode in wads of cotton-wool.

Colette
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
The tomcat is behaving consistently. On arrival, he struck his forehead and cried 'But of course! This is where I climb up a mulberry tree and sing at the top of my voice and then do battle with a white cat!'

Colette
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
Neither knowledge nor diligence can create a great chef. Of what use is conscientiousness as a substitute for inspiration?

Colette
The seduction emanating from a person of uncertain or dissimulated sex is powerful.

Colette
The more the wonders of the world become inaccessible, the more intensely do its curiosities affect us.

Colette
You remind me of people who bring along a little box of cakes and leave it in the hall, saying to themselves: 'There'll be plenty of time to produce these later,' and then pick them up again when they go.

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

Colette
The three great stumbling blocks in a girl's education... homard a l'Américaine, a boiled egg, and asparagus.

Colette
It is, alas, only the first forgiveness which is difficult.

Colette