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
There are no ordinary cats.
—Colette
Topics: Cats
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
It was on that road and at that hour that I first became aware of my own self, experienced an inexpressible state of grace, and felt one with the first breath of air that stirred, the first bird, and the sun so newly born that it still looked not quite round.
—Colette
Topics: Beginnings
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
The woman who thinks she is intelligent demands equal rights with men. A woman who is intelligent does not.
—Colette
Topics: Intellectuals, Intelligence
Real poverty is lack of books.
—Colette
Topics: Poverty
Music is love in search of a word.
—Colette
Topics: Music, One liners
In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.
—Colette
Topics: Home
On this narrow planet, we have only the choice between two unknown worlds. One of them tempts us—ah! what a dream, to live in that!—the other stifles us at the first breath.
—Colette
Topics: Choice, Choices
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
A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.
—Colette
Topics: Childhood, Experience
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
I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering.
—Colette
Topics: Adversity
Don’t ever wear artistic jewelry; it wrecks a woman’s reputation.
—Colette
No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object.
—Colette
Topics: Temptation
It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.
—Colette
Topics: Children
What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.
—Colette
And what a delight it is to make friends with someone you have despised.
—Colette
Topics: Friendship, Friends and Friendship
Total absence of humor renders life impossible.
—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
Topics: Writing, Writers, Authors & Writing
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.
—Colette
Topics: Fashion
It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.
—Colette
Topics: Courtesy, Manners
A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men.
—Colette
Topics: Women, Men & Women, Men
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
Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.
—Colette
Topics: Sincerity
The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.
—Colette
Topics: Travel
If I cannot have too many truffles I will do without.
—Colette
Topics: Weight
Sit down and 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.
—Colette
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writing
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
What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.
—Colette
Topics: Living, Life, Happiness, Blessings
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: Girls, Children
For to dream and then to return to reality only means that our qualms suffer a change of place and significance
—Colette
Topics: Dreams, Reality
Is suffering so very serious?. I have come to doubt it. It may be quite childish, a sort of undignified pastime—I’m referring to the kind of suffering a man inflicts on a woman or a woman on a man. It’s extremely painful. I agree that it’s hardly bearable. But I very much fear that this sort of pain deserves no consideration at all. It’s no more worthy of respect than old age or illness.
—Colette
Topics: Suffering
To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.
—Colette
Topics: Poets, Poetry
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
Jealousy is not at all low, but it catches us humbled and bowed down, at first sight.
—Colette
Topics: Jealousy
There is nothing that gives more assurance than a mask.
—Colette
We only do well the things we like doing.
—Colette
Topics: Success, Appropriateness, Aptness, Enjoyment
You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
—Colette
Topics: Mistakes, Passion, Enthusiasm
Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette.
—Colette
Topics: Smoking
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Francoise Sagan French Novelist
Jules Verne French Novelist
Alfred de Musset French Poet, Playwright
Henri de Montherlant French Essayist, Novelist, Dramatist
Jean Cocteau French Poet, Artist
Andre Gide French Novelist
Marquis de Sade French Political leader
Roland Barthes French Literary Theorist
Arthur Rimbaud French Poet
Simone de Beauvoir French Philosopher