Quotes by Colette

About Colette:

Colette was a French novelist nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Her best known work, the novella, Gigi (1944), was the basis for the film and Lerner and Loewe stage production of the same name. She was also a mime, an actress and a journalist.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The seventeenth of March. In other words, spring. Desmond, people who think themselves smart, I mean those in the height of fashion, women or men - can they afford to wait any longer before buying their spring wardrobes?

Colette

Les beaux yeux qui ne demandent qu’à sourire ! (pg. 9)

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

If he's getting married, he's not longer interesting.

Colette

You were listening at the door, Gigi!" "No, Grandmamma." "Yes, you had your ear to the keyhole. You must never listen at key-holes. You don't hear properly and so you get things all wrong.

Colette

A few days later, I found my mother beneath the tree, motionless with excitement, her head turned toward the heavens in which she would allow human religions no place.

Colette

The more sensitive the lunatic, the less able is he to resist this prying interest of the normal human being. I felt that Renée's change of key - to myself, I compared Renée to a sweet melody, a little flat despite its laborious harmonies - was app...

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

It was fun to see him becoming sententious again, glorying in a science he had invented, and as positive as a village soothsayer. 'So one should neither give nor receive?' I laughed. 'And if the lover is poor, his mistress indigent, then both she and...

Colette

All this is still my kingdom, a small portion of the splendid riches which God distributes to passers-by, to wanderers and to solitaries. The earth belongs to anyone who stops for a moment, gazes and goes on his way; the whole sun belongs to the nake...

Colette

No one asked you to be happy. Get to work.

Colette

Time spent with a cat is never wasted.

Colette

There are no ordinary cats.

Colette

look for a long time at what pleases you, and longer still at what pains you...

Colette

It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter sl...

Colette

It is only in pain that a woman is capable of rising above mediocrity. Her resistance to pain is infinite; one can use and abuse it without any fear that she will die, as long as some childish physical cowardice or some religious hope keeps her from ...

Colette

Oh! To rationalize oneself into matrimony...Oh! To decide something so grave in life 'after mature consideration'! Choose the color of a dress after a thousand hesitations, but for God's sake, get married without reflecting on it! That's the grace I ...

Colette

Don't you think, that there are very few men who know, without raising their voice or changing their tone, to say...what has to be said?

Colette

...She (her mother) noticed that I was prettier than I was at home. Thus do girls change color in the warmth of masculine desire, whether they are fifteen or thirty.

Colette

Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it." ( , 1964)

Colette

Author Bio

  • NameColette
  • Description1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi
  • AliasesSidonie-Gabrielle Colette; Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
  • BornJanuary 28, 1873
  • DiedAugust 3, 1954
  • CountryFrance
  • ProfessionNovelist; Ghostwriter; Journalist; Writer; Librettist
  • AwardsCommander Of The Legion Of Honour; Grand Officer Of The Legion Of Honour; Officer Of The Legion Of Honour; Knight Of The Legion Of Honour