Sidonie Gabrielle Colette Quotes

There are days when solitude 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.

solitude days poison wall bitter wine head beat freedom

Perhaps the only misplaced curiosity is that which persists in trying to find out here, on this side of death, what lies beyond the grave.

death lies curiosity grave find side

A woman who thinks she is intelligent demands the same rights as man. An intelligent woman gives up.

rights man woman intelligent

Writing only leads to more writing.

writing

It's nothing to be born ugly. Sensibly, the ugly woman comes to terms with her ugliness and exploits it as a grace of nature. To become ugly means the beginning of a calamity, self-willed most of the time.

grace nature time woman beginning ugly born ugliness

Is suffering so very serious? I have come to doubt it. It may be quite childish, a sort of undignified pastime / I'm referring to the kind of suffering a man inflicts on a woman or a woman on a man. It's extremely painful. I agree that it's hardly bearable. But I very much fear that this sort of pain deserves no consideration at all. It's no more worthy of respect than old age or illness.

doubt pain man age suffering fear kind respect woman worthy illness consideration

In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness.

absence find matter ugliness worse

Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: ''It's four o clock. At five I have my abyss.. ''

senses survive abyss clock begin great routine