Quotes from Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.

It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.

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

A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.

No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object.

There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.

Never touch a butterfly's wing with your finger.

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.

The faults of husbands are often caused by the excess virtues of their wives.

A woman who thinks she is intelligent demands the same rights as man. An intelligent woman gives up.

I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering.

The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.

Music is love in search of a word.

The only virtue on which I pride myself is my self-doubt; when a writer loses her self-doubt, the time has come to lay aside her pen.

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.

In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.

I want nothing from love, in short, but love.

My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.

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.

I went to collect the few personal belongings which...I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.

I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.

The faults of husbands are often caused by the excess virtues of their wives.

Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.

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.