Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTESincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTESmokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEWhen she raises her eyelids it’s as if she were taking off all her clothes.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEMy true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEIt is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.
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 COLETTEHope costs nothing.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEYou will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEI want nothing from love, in short, but love.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEThe 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 COLETTEThe only virtue on which I pride myself is my self-doubt; when a writer loses her self-doubt, the time has come to lay aside her pen.
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTEThere 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 COLETTEI did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.
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 COLETTEBe happy. It’s one way of being wise.
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 COLETTE