Quotes from Colette

She (her mother) noticed that I was prettier than I was at home. Thus do girls change color in the warmth of masculine desire, whether they are fifteen or thirty.

elle ne pouvait pas comprendre que l'humeur sensuelle d'un homme est une saison brève, dont le retour incertain n'est jamais un recommencement.

My true friends always gave me this supreme proof of attachment: a spontaneous aversion to the men I loved.

All this is still my kingdom, a small portion of the splendid riches which God distributes to passers-by, to wanderers and to solitaries. The earth belongs to anyone who stops for a moment, gazes and goes on his way; the whole sun belongs to the naked lizard who basks in it.

Beautiful? For whom? Why, for myself, of course.

We only do well the things we like doing.

And since, through lack of vocation or from habit, [Julie] was prone to confuse pity with boredom, she felt herself practically a prisoner...

Tu es comme l'odeur des roses (…) tu ôtes l'appétit.

Mothers sound so stupid when they praise their daughters to the skies.

Je sais très bien, depuis longtemps, que j'ai un cœur déraisonnable, mais, de le savoir, ça ne m'arrête pas du tout.

It wasn't only a little she-cat I bought. It was the nobility of all cats, their infinite disinterestedness, their knowledge of how to live, their affinities with the highest type of humans.

Lecz kobiecie z trudem przychodzi nie oddac sie mezczyznie

she was approaching the age when she could indulge in a few creature comforts. She liked order, fine linen, wines in their prime, and carefully planned meals at home.

A good book is a portal that will take you anywhere in the world.

A woman claims as many native lands as she had happy love affairs, Likewise, she is born under every sky where she recovers from the pain of loving.

It is absurd to suppose that periods empty of love are blank pages in a woman's life. The truth is just the reverse. What remains to be said about a passionate love affair? It can be told in three lines. He loved me, I loved Him. His presence obliterated all other presences. We were happy. Then He stopped loving me and I suffered.

Her stormy eyes, her sincere sensuality, the softness of her skin and her voice

the feminine appetite for possession tends to emasculate every living contest, and can reduce a magnificient but inferior male to the status of a courtesan.

Entre les jeunes mariés ça va trop bien ou ça va trop mal. Et je ne sais pas lequel vaut le mieux. Mais ça ne va jamais tout seul.

Le blanc bleuté de ses yeux, presque aussi bleu que sa claire robe d'été, l'arrangement parfait et superflu de sa joue, de sa bouche et de ses paupières, ne le touchèrent pas.

To write sincerely, almost sincerely! I hope it may bring me relief, that sort of interior silence which follows a sudden utterance, a confession.

But though love laughs at difference in age, friendship, especially between two women, is more acutely conscious of it.

Held captive beneath the translucent skin, the seven colours of the rainbow flickered with some secret fire of their own all over the surface of each precious sphere. Chéri recognized the pearl with a dimple, the slightly egg-shaped pearl, and the biggest pearl of the string, distinguishable by its unique pink. 'These pearls, these at least, are unchanged! They and I remain unchanged.

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.