"As opposed to the incoherent spectacle of the world, the real is what is expected, what is obtained and what is discovered by our own movement. It is what is sensed as being within our own power and always responsive to our action."

"Aristotle's pupil already realized that we have no power at all over our passions as long as we do not know their true causes. Many men have refuted fear, and with sound arguments. But a man who is afraid does not listen to arguments; he listens to the beating of his heart and the pulsating of his blood."

"It is clear that in mulling over harsh judgments, sinister predictions, and bad memories, we fashion our own sadness; in a certain sense, we savor it."

"In short, the important thing is to get started. No matter how; then there will be time to ask yourself where you are going."

"We must clear away, simplify, eradicate."

"When the pack is out hunting, the dogs do not fight among themselves."

"Our errors perish before we do. Let's not mummify them and keep them around."

"Everybody continually tries to get away with as much as he can; and society is a marvelous machine which allows decent people to be cruel without realizing it."

"Politeness is for people toward whom we feel indifferent, and moods, both good and bad, are for those we love."

"Humanity will have to extricate itself from the bags created by false moralists, according to whom we taste happiness and then pass judgment on it, as if it were a piece of fruit. But I maintain that even for a piece of fruit we can do something to help it taste good. This is even truer of marriage and every other human relationship; these things are not meant to be tasted or passively accepted; they must be made. A relationship is not like a bit of shade where one is comfortable or uncomfortable depending on the weather and the way the wind is blowing. On the contrary, it is a place of miracles, where the magician makes the rain and the good weather."

"Any kind of barbarism, once established, will last."

"Idleness is the mother of all vices, but also of all virtues."

"In short, the anomaly of war is that the best men get themselves killed while crafty men find their chance to govern in a manner contrary to justice."

"May the Gods, if they did not die of boredom, never give you one of those flat kingdoms to govern; may lead you through mountain paths; may they give you for a companion a good Andalusian mule with eyes like wells, a brow like an anvil, and who stops dead in his tracks because he sees the shadow his ears make on the road in front of him."

"Work is the best and worst of all things; the best of it is voluntary, the worst of it is servile."

"Every menial condition is bearable as long as one can exercise authority over one's work and be assured that the job is permanent."

"We are advised and led along by second-rate moralists who only know how to work themselves into a delirium and pass their illness onto others."

"One must preach life, not death; spread hope, not fear and cultivate joy, man's most valuable treasure. That is the secret of the greatest of the wise, and it will be the light of tomorrow. Passions are sad. Hatred is sad. Joy destroys passions and hatred. Let us begin by telling ourselves that sadness is never noble, beautiful or useful."

"An author of antiquity said that every event has two handles, and that, in order to carry it, there is no sense in choosing the one that hurts the hand."

"Certainly thinking is pleasant, but the pleasure of thinking must be subordinated to the art of making decisions."

"Obligation spoils everything."

"Never be insolent unless it is a deliberate decision, and only toward a man more powerful than yourself."

"Happiness is a reward that comes to those that have not looked for it."

"Each one gave the other the only assistance one man can expect from another: that his friend support him and ask only that he remain himself. It is no great accomplishment to take people as they are, and we must always do so eventually, but to wish them to be as they are, that is a genuine love."

"Untie, liberate, and do not be afraid. He who is free is disarmed."

"It is very true that we ought to think of the happiness of others; but it is not often enough said that the best thing we can do for those who love us is to be happy ourselves."

"Every boat is copied from another boat... Let’s reason as follows in the manner of Darwin. It is clear that a very badly made boat will end up at the bottom after one or two voyages, and thus never be copied... One could then say, with complete rigor, that it is the sea herself who fashions the boats, choosing those which function and destroying the others."

"On prouve tout ce qu'on veut, et la vraie difficulté est de savoir ce qu'on veut prouver."

"Thought is saying no, and it is to itself that thought says no."

"To think is to say no."

"When people ask me if the division between parties of the right and parties of the left, men of the right and men of the left, still makes sense, the first thing that comes to mind is that the person asking the question is certainly not a man of the left."

"Rien n’est plus dangereux qu’une idèe, quand on n’a qu’une idèe."

"If religion is only human, and its form is man’s form, it follows that everything in religion is true."

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

"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.”"

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

"Boredom helps one to make decisions."

"A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men... nine men out of ten are superstitious, nineteen out of twenty believe in the evil eye, and ninety-eight out of a hundred are afraid of spiders. They forgive us — oh! for many things, but not for the absence in us of their own feelings."

"Toby-Dog: It seems to me that of the two of us it's you they make the most of, and yet you do all the grumbling. Kiki-The-Demure: A dog's logic, that! The more one gives the more I demand. Toby-Dog: That's wrong. It's indiscreet. Kiki-The-Demure: Not at all. I have a right to everything. Toby-Dog: To everything? And I? Kiki-The-Demure: I don't imagine you lack anything, do you? Toby-Dog: Ah, I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come... Kiki-The-Demure: And then what dreadful thing happens? Toby-Dog: You know very well! Inevitably, at that moment She appears, carrying a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it — Castor Oil!"

"Kiki-The-Demure: Once when I was little She tried to give me castor oil. I scratched and bit her so, she never tried again. Ha! She must have thought she held the devil between her knees. I squirmed, blew fire through my nostrils, multiplied my twenty claws by a hundred, my teeth by one thousand, and finally — disappeared as if by magic. Toby-Dog: I wouldn't dare do that. You see, I love her. I love her enough to forgive her even the torture of the bath."

"(What moves you most in a work of literature?) I’m not yet the writer I aspire to be, but at my age, great books written by women over 60 give me hope. Diana Athill, Colette, Harriett Doerr, Marguerite Duras, Grace Paley, Elena Poniatowska, Jean Rhys, Mercé Rodoreda, to name but a few."

"If I can't have too many truffles, I'll do without truffles,"

"I am devoted to those who endured, like Colette. It is easier … to kiss the world a bitter goodbye than to go on working, writing, changing, enduring the slings & arrows of outrageous aging. Colette endured. And she wrote & wrote & wrote. Whenever I feel really depressed, I think of her & keep going."

"Here lived, here died Colette, whose work is a window wide open on life."

"I've felt that her perceptions, her feelings about food, gardens, the sea are beautiful. She was a peasant-that was her saving grace. And yet so elegant in her style. But I love the peasant in her, the one who delights in smells and tastes. I never tasted a of chocolate like her chocolate. And her matchless subtlety. Do remember the episode, I think it's so funny, when they were going to bring her into the Académie Française and they said, oh yes, she's a beautiful writer, a wonderful stylist, but she doesn't write about important things, only about love? She's only writing about love. She meant a lot to me."