81 Quotes by Colette

Hope costs nothing.

It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.

No one asked you to be happy. Get to work.

look for a long time at what pleases you, and longer still at what pains you...

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

I am perfectly well aware that May has not a will that overcomes mine, but an inner mechanism superior to my own, a whirling driving-power that is never slowed down by thoughts.She has taught me that one can dine without being hungry, talk without saying anything, laugh from sheer force of habit, drink out of human respect and live with a man in a state of complete servility while maintaining all the appearances of frantic independence.

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."(Casual Chance, 1964)

The writer who loses his self-doubt, who gives way as he grows old to a sudden euphoria, to prolixity, should stop writing immediately: the time has come for him to lay aside his pen.

Trudno zadowolić jednocześnie wszystkich i samą siebie. Wolę zacząć od siebie...