Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Colette (French Novelist, Performer)

Colette (1873–1954,) fully Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, also Colette Willy, was a French writer who produced some of the most memorable female characters in literature. She was a novelist, short-story writer, journalist, essayist, memoirist, actress, and music-hall performer. Her best novels, mainly concerned with feminine independence in experiencing the joys and sorrows of love, are extraordinary for their command of sensual description.

Born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, Burgundy, Colette ghost-wrote her early novels, including the first four Claudine novels (Claudine à l’école (1900,) Claudine à Paris (1901,) Claudine en ménage (1902,) and Claudine s’en va (1903,)) using her first husband’s pseudonym, Willy. From 1904 (the end of their association) to 1916 she wrote under the name ‘Colette Willy.’

In 1906, Colette appeared in music halls in dance and mime, and out of this period came La Vagabonde (1910; The Vagabond, 1955) and L’Envers du Music-hall (1913; Music-Hall Sidelights, 1957.) She also became the mistress of the actress Mathilde “Missy” de Morny—Colette wrote Les Vrilles de la vigne (1908; Tendrils of the Vine) about her affair with Missy.

Colette is one of the most prolific literary geniuses of the modern era and is recognized as one of the great stylists of the French language. Her utmost strength as a writer is an exact sensory evocation of sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and colors of her world. Her most famous novels include Chéri (1920,) La Fin de Chéri (1926; The Last of Chéri, 1932,) la Chatte (1933; The Cat, 1936) and Gigi (1944.)

Colette is the subject of numerous biographies, songs, and films, including the biopic Colette (2018) starring Keira Knightley.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Colette

I love my past, I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it.
—Colette
Topics: Past, The Past

The lovesick, the betrayed, and the jealous all smell alike.
—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 shriveled innocence of an old maid?
—Colette

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.
—Colette
Topics: Children, Girls

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
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing

Girls usually have a paper mache face on their wedding day.
—Colette
Topics: Marriage, Weddings

What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.
—Colette
Topics: Living, Happiness, Blessings, Life

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.
—Colette
Topics: Friends and Friendship

We only do well the things we like doing.
—Colette
Topics: Success, Appropriateness, Aptness, Enjoyment

It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts. After death they take on a firmer outline and then cease to change.
—Colette
Topics: Absence

Time spent with cats is never wasted.
—Colette
Topics: Time, Cats

A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.
—Colette
Topics: Childhood, Experience

Shall we never have done with that cliche, so stupid that it could only be human, about the sympathy of animals for man when he is unhappy? Animals love happiness almost as much as we do. A fit of crying disturbs them, they’ll sometimes imitate sobbing, and for a moment they’ll reflect our sadness. But they flee unhappiness as they flee fever, and I believe that in the long run they are capable of boycotting it.
—Colette
Topics: Animals

My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.
—Colette
Topics: Friends and Friendship

What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.
—Colette

Music is love in search of a word.
—Colette
Topics: Music, One liners

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

One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave.
—Colette
Topics: Aging, Age

As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow.
—Colette
Topics: Crime

Researchers, with science as their authority, will be able to cut Animals up, alive, into small pieces, drop them from a great height to see if they are shattered by the fall, or deprive them of sleep for sixteen days and nights continuously for the purposes of an iniquitous monograph… Animal trust, undeserved faith, when at last will you turn away from us? Shall we never tire of deceiving, betraying, tormenting animals before they cease to trust us?
—Colette
Topics: Science

There are no ordinary cats.
—Colette
Topics: Cats

January, month of empty pockets! Let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer’s forehead.
—Colette
Topics: Winter, Seasons

Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: “It’s four o clock. At five I have my abyss… “
—Colette
Topics: Despair

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.
—Colette
Topics: Manners, Courtesy

Don’t ever wear artistic jewelry; it wrecks a woman’s reputation.
—Colette

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.
—Colette
Topics: Appearance

You do not notice changes in what is always before you.
—Colette
Topics: Change

Look for a long time at what pleases you, and a longer time at what pains you.
—Colette
Topics: Pleasure

You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.
—Colette
Topics: Aging, Age

If I cannot have too many truffles I will do without.
—Colette
Topics: Weight

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