Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEIt is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.
More Sidonie Gabrielle Colette Quotes
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In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.
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By an image we hold on to our lost treasures, but it is the wrenching loss that forms the image, composes, binds the bouquet.
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Look for a long time at what pleases you, and a longer time at what pains you.
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If I can’t have too many truffles, I’ll do without truffles.
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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.
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I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.
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You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
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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.
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It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.
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Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette.
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My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.
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You don’t think before you do something foolish. You do your thinking afterwards.
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Jealousy is not at all low, but it catches us humbled and bowed down, at first sight.
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I am indebted to the cat for a particular kind of honorable deceit, for a greater control over myself, for a characteristic aversion to brutal sounds, and for the need to keep silent for long periods of time.
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No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object.
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One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave.
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I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering.
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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.
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We only do well the things we like doing.
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There are connoisseurs of blue just as there are connoisseurs of wine.
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A kindly gesture bestowed by us on an animal arouses prodigies of understanding and gratitude.
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Books, books, books. It was not that I read so much. I read and re-read the same ones. But all of them were necessary to me. Their presence, their smell, the letters of their titles, and the texture of their leather bindings.
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If we want to be sincere, we must admit that there is a well-nourished love and an ill-nourished love. And the rest is literature.
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A pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men.
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I want nothing from love, in short, but love.
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To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE