Quotes from Colette

Be happy. It's one way of being wise.

When she raises her eyelids, it's as if she were taking off all her clothes.

The woman who thinks she is intelligent demands equal rights with men. A woman who is intelligent does not.

I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.

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

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

To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.

Total absence of humor renders life impossible.

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.

I have found my voice again and the art of using it...

But what is the heart, madame? It's worth less than people think. it's quite accommodating, it accepts anything. You give it whatever you have, it's not very particular. But the body... Ha! That's something else again! It has a cultivated taste, as they say, it knows what it wants. A heart doesn't choose, and one always ends up by loving.

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.

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 slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.

The woman who thinks she is intelligent demands equal rights with men. A woman who is intelligent does not.

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

Donít eat too many almonds; they add weight to the breasts.

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.

Solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom.

Don't ever wear artistic jewelry; it wrecks a woman's reputation.

If I cannot have too many truffles I will do without.

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.

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?

Girls usually have a paper m'chÈ face on their wedding day.

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