Colette

Be happy. It's one way of being wise

You were listening at the door, Gigi!""No, Grandmamma.""Yes, you had your ear to the keyhole. You must never listen at key-holes. You don't hear properly and so you get things all wrong.

No one asked you to be happy. Get to work.

It is only in pain that a woman is capable of rising above mediocrity. Her resistance to pain is infinite; one can use and abuse it without any fear that she will die, as long as some childish physical cowardice or some religious hope keeps her from the suicide that offers her a way out.

Don't you think, that there are very few men who know, without raising their voice or changing their tone, to say...what has to be said?

Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.

You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.

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

A few days later, I found my mother beneath the tree, motionless with excitement, her head turned toward the heavens in which she would allow human religions no place.

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

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

What a wonderful life I__e had! I only wish I__ realized it sooner.

Time spent with a cat is never wasted.

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 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.

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

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.

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