Colette (1873 – 1954)
French writer, usually known simply by her pen-name "Colette.
It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.
Total absence of humor renders life impossible.
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.
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.
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.
We only do well the things we like doing.
Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette.
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?
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.
Boredom helps one to make decisions.
When she raises her eyelids it's as if she were taking off all her clothes.
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.
You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
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.
It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.
What a delight it is to make friends with someone you have despised!
Humility has its origin in an awareness of unworthiness, and sometimes too in a dazzled awareness of saintliness.
My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.
To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.
Don’t ever wear artistic jewellry; it wrecks a woman’s reputation.