Colette quotes - page 3

Her childhood, then her adolescence, had taught her patience, hope, silence and the easy manipulation of the weapons and virtues of all prisoners. (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? View quote
Colette
What a delight it is to make friends with someone you have despised! View quote
Colette
So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days. View quote
Colette
Time spent with a cat is never wasted. View quote
Colette
I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering. View quote
Colette
Jealousy is not at all low, but it catches us humbled and bowed down, at first sight. View quote
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. View quote
Colette
I want nothing from love, in short, but love. View quote
Colette
If he's getting married, he's not longer interesting. View quote
Colette
Writing only leads to more writing. (Colette)
Never touch a butterfly's wing with your finger. View quote
Colette
No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object. View quote
Colette
The faults of husbands are often caused by the excess virtues of their wives. View quote
Colette
Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either. View quote
Colette
A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men. View quote
Colette
January, month of empty pockets! let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer's forehead. View quote
Colette
One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave. View quote
Colette
I am going away with him to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart. View quote
Colette
Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come... View quote
Colette
To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly. (Colette)
Then, bidding farewell to The Knick-Knack, I went to collect the few personal belongings which, at that time, I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude. View quote
Colette
Music is love in search of a word. View quote
Colette
Among all the modernized aspects of the most luxurious of industries, the model, a vestige of voluptuous barbarianism, is like some plunder-laden prey. She is the object of unbridled regard, a living bait, the passive realization of an ideal. No other female occupation contains such potent impulses to moral disintegration as this one, applying as it does the outward signs of riches to a poor and beautiful girl. View quote
Colette
Toby-Dog: It seems to me that of the two of us it's you they make the most of, and yet you do all the grumbling. Kiki-The-Demure: A dog's logic, that! The more one gives the more I demand. Toby-Dog: That's wrong. It's indiscreet. Kiki-The-Demure: Not at all. I have a right to everything. Toby-Dog: To everything? And I? Kiki-The-Demure: I don't imagine you lack anything, do you? Toby-Dog: Ah, I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come... Kiki-The-Demure: And then what dreadful thing happens? Toby-Dog: You know very well! Inevitably, at that moment She appears, carrying a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it - Castor Oil! View quote
Colette