"For brevity, for wit that began back in the observation of the eye which produced it; for the loving openness, almost transparency, of all the senses to the moment passing, its time and place; for a recognition of the essence of that tension (of whatever name or quality) existing between and among the human beings and sometimes the cat in a room together; for a recording of feeling as strict as a seismograph's; perhaps best of all for a real gaiety, a real laughing gaiety-for these things we will value, honor, study, and above all delight in Colette."

"Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette."

"Perhaps the only misplaced curiosity is that which persists in trying to find out here, on this side of death, what lies beyond the grave."

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

"Whether you are dealing with an animal or a child, to convince is to weaken."

"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.”"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"For to dream and then to return to reality only means that our qualms suffer a change of place and significance."

"Don’t ever wear artistic jewellry; it wrecks a woman’s reputation."

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

"Humility has its origin in an awareness of unworthiness, and sometimes too in a dazzled awareness of saintliness."

"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."

"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."

"Total absence of humor renders life impossible."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"The day after that wedding night I found that a distance of a thousand miles, abyss and discovery and irremediable metamorphosis, separated me from the day before."

"You do not notice changes in what is always before you."

"What a delight it is to make friends with someone you have despised!"

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

"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 shrivelled innocence of an old maid?"

"If one wished to be perfectly sincere, one would have to admit there are two kinds of love—well-fed and ill-fed. The rest is pure fiction."

"Le monde des èmotions qu’on nomme, á la lègére, physiques."

"Let’s go out and buy playing-cards, good wine, bridge-scorers, knitting needles—all the paraphernalia to fill a gaping void, all that’s required to disguise that monster, an old woman."

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

"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."

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

"There are days when solitude, for someone my age, 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."

"Nothing ages a woman like living in the country."

"By means of an image we are often able to hold on to our lost belongings. But it is the desperateness of losing which picks the flowers of memory, binds the bouquet."

"Life as a child and then as a girl had taught her patience, hope, silence; and given her a prisoner's proficiency in handling these virtues as weapons."

"It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts. After death they take on a firmer outline and then cease to change."

"We only do well the things we like doing."

"Il ne faut pas s’offenser que les autres nous cachent la vérité puisque nous nous la cachons si souvent à nous-mêmes."

"Ce qui nous fait croire si facilement que les autres ont des défauts, c'est la facilité que l'on a de croire ce qu'on souhaite."

"C'est une ennuyeuse maladie que de conserver sa santé par un trop grand régime."

"C’est une espèce de bonheur, de connaître jusqu’à quel point on doit être malheureux."

"Il est quelquefois agréable à un mari d'avoir une femme jalouse; il entend toujours parler de ce qu'il aime."

"Il ne sert à rien d'être jeune sans être belle, ni d'être belle sans être jeune."

"Les querelles ne dureraient pas longtemps, si le tort n'était que d'un côté."

"Comment prétendons-nous qu'un autre puisse garder notre secret, si nous ne pouvons le garder nous-mêmes?"

"Dans les premières passions les femmes aiment l'amant, et dans les autres elles aiment l'amour."

"Il y a peu de femmes dont le mérite dure plus que la beauté."

"De toutes les passions violentes, celle qui sied le moins mal aux femmes, c'est l'amour."

"Nous essayons de nous faire honneur des défauts que nous ne voulons pas corriger."