black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

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

Drugs Excuse Light Male Smoking
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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Day Distance Finding Myself Separate
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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Astonishment Finding Growth Quick Yourself
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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Book Myself Necessary Presence Reading
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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Artist Authentic Himself Life Ordinary Time Villain
If I can’t have too many truffles, I’ll do without truffles.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Acceptance Gratitude Myself
You do not notice changes in what is always before you.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Change Notice Yourself
Is suffering so very serious? …I’m referring to the kind of suffering a man inflicts on a woman or a woman on a man. It’s extremely painful… hardly bearable. But I very much fear that this sort of pain… is no more worthy of respect than old age or illness.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Age Kind Old Pain Respect Serious Suffering Woman Worth
That lovely voice; how I should weep for joy if I could hear it now!
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Joy Love Myself Voice
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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Age Alone Bitter Freedom Poison Solitude Wall
We only do well the things we like doing.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Passionate Work
No one asked you to be happy. Get to work.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Happiness Work Yourself
It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Friendship Mechanism Polite Wisdom
At 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 COLETTE

Cloak Comfortable Dirty Leadership Warm
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.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Allow Excitement Finding Human Place Religion Tree
Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE

Flower Modesty Sincere Spontaneous