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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEOn 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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEIn its early stages, insomnia is almost an oasis in which those who have to think or suffer darkly take refuge.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEBy 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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEAt the top of the iron staircase leading to the stage, the good, dry, dusty warmth wraps me round like a comfortable dirty cloak.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEYou 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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEDon’t cudgel your brains over my little problems.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEOne keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEBooks, 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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEAs 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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEA happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEMy true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTENever touch a butterfly’s wing with your finger.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEI want nothing from love, in short, but love.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEThe lovesick, the betrayed, and the jealous all smell alike.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEIn the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEA pretty little collection of weaknesses and a terror of spiders are our indispensable stock-in-trade with the men.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE