Colette

“It was fun to see him becoming sententious again, glorying in a science he had invented, and as positive as a village soothsayer.'So one should neither give nor receive?' I laughed. 'And if the lover is poor, his mistress indigent, then both she and he must tactfully let themselves and each other die?''Let them die,' he repeated.I had accompanied him as far as the revolving glass door of the lobby.'Let them die,' he said again. 'It's less dangerous. I can swear on my word of honor that I never gave a present or made a loan or an exchange of anything except . . . this . . .'He waved both hands in a complicated gesture which fleetingly indicated his chest, his mouth, his genitals, his thighs. Thanks no doubt to my fatigue, I was reminded of an animal standing on its hind legs and unwinding the invisible. Then he resumed his strictly human significance, opened the door, and easily mingled with the night outside, where the sea was already a little paler than the sky.”

“Un uomo che ha guai finanziari è un uomo costretto tutto il tempo ad avere idee per trovare denaro. Non abbiate timore. Quando un individuo deve cavarsela, se la caverà”

“... what an ennobling sadness you lent to my evening's enjoyment.”

“I liked being with him, as I like being with swift animals who are motionless when at rest.”

“... car écrire ne conduit qu’à écrire.”

“The lovesick, the betrayed, and the jealous all smell alike.”

“The more sensitive the lunatic, the less able is he to resist this prying interest of the normal human being. I felt that Renée's change of key - to myself, I compared Renée to a sweet melody, a little flat despite its laborious harmonies - was approaching.”

“The word 'pure' has never revealed an intelligent meaning to me. I can only use the word to quench and optical thirst for purity in the transparencies that evoke it - in bubbles, in a volume of water, and in the imaginary latitudes entrenched, beyond reach, at the very center of a dense crystal.”

“i heard on their lips the language of passion, of betrayal and jealousy, and sometimes despair - languages with which I was all too familiar.”

“Jealousy is not at all low, but it catches us humbled and bowed down, at first sight. For it is the only suffering that we endure without ever becoming used to it.”

“It is the image in the mind that links us to our lost treasures; but it is the loss that shapes the image, gathers the flowers, weaves the garland.”

“They exchanged looks full of mischievous security.”

“You don't think before you do something foolish. You do your thinking afterwards.”

“Don't cudgel your brains over my little problems.”

“To write is to pour one’s innermost self passionately upon the tempting paper, at such frantic speed that sometimes one’s hand struggles and rebels, overdriven by the impatient god which guides it - and to find, next day, in place of the golden bough that bloomed miraculously in that dazzling hour, a withered bramble and a stunted flower.”

“…elle ne pouvait pas comprendre que l’humeur sensuelle d’un homme est une saison brève, dont le retour incertain n’est jamais un recommencement.”

“Tu es comme l’odeur des roses (…) tu ôtes l’appétit.”

“Le blanc bleuté de ses yeux, presque aussi bleu que sa claire robe d’été, l’arrangement parfait et superflu de sa joue, de sa bouche et de ses paupières, ne le touchèrent pas.”

“Entre les jeunes mariés ça va trop bien ou ça va trop mal. Et je ne sais pas lequel vaut le mieux. Mais ça ne va jamais tout seul.”

“Don't ever wear artistic jewelry; it wrecks a woman's reputation”

“Live in the moment!”

“That lovely voice; how I should weep for joy if I could hear it now!”

“I have nothing to say to men and never had. Judging from the little time I’ve spent with them, their usual conversation is sickening. Besides, they bore me. I believe,” he hesitated, then concluded, “I believe I don’t understand men.”

“Los compañeros perfectos no tienen menos de cuatro patas.”

“Che cosa avevano in comune quel corpo, l'uso che non poteva fare l'amore, i suoi inevitabili scopi, e il destino di un altro corpo di donna, votato a delicati rapimenti, dotato i una genialità da predone, di un'appassionata implacabilità, di una pedagogia ipocrita e incantatrice?"Nascondeva con difficoltà un dolore che non riusciva a comprendere. Che cosa aveva dunque conquistato, la notte scorsa, nell'ombra profumata, tra quelle braccia ansiose di farlo uomo e vittorioso? Il diritto di soffrire? Il diritto di mancare per debolezza davanti a una fanciulla innocente e pura? Il diritto di tremare se non si sa perchè, dinanzi alla delicata vita delle bestie e al sangue fuggito dalle sue sorgenti?"Ah, la luce sorda e rossastra di una camera sconosciuta! Ah, quella buia felicità, quella morte raggiunta per gradi, e poi la vita, recuperata a lenti colpi d'ala...""Quelle piccole orecchie arrossate risuonavano ancora di un grido sommesso, soffocato come quello di un essere che venga sgozzato? Qulle braccia, ricche di muscoli appena visibili, l'avevano portato, leggero, confuso, da questo mondo in un altro mondo; quella bocca avara di parole, s'era chinaa per trasmetter e per mormorare, indistinto, un canto che nasceva debole eco, dalle profondità in cui la vita è una convulsione terribile...Ella sapeva tutto...”

“Nulla porta-lo so- all'amore. E' lui che si butta di traverso sulla vostra strada. La sbarra per sempre o se se ne allontana lascia la via sconvolta, sfondata.Soltanto nel dolore una donna è capace di superare la mediocrità”

“Be happy.It's one way of being wise.”

“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.”

“In its early stages, insomnia is almost an oasis in which those who have to think or suffer darkly take refuge.”

“Total absence of humor renders life impossible.”

“- and how time flies! What, has it already been twenty years, already forty years that we are together? Why, how terrible! We haven't yet said all we wanted to say to each other... May we have a little respite, or else may we be allowed to begin all over again!”

“Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.”

“If I can’t have too many truffles, I’ll do without truffles.”

“But what is the heart, madame? It's worth less than people think. it's quite accommodating, it accepts anything. You give it whatever you have, it's not very particular. But the body... Ha! That's something else again! It has a cultivated taste, as they say, it knows what it wants. A heart doesn't choose, and one always ends up by loving.”

“beautiful December grapes, blue as plums, every grape a little skinful of sweet, tasteless water”

“At the top of the iron staircase leading to the stage, the good, dry, dusty warmth wraps me round like a comfortable dirty cloak.”

“So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.”

“I want nothing from love, in short, but love.”

“To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one. ”

“Hope costs nothing. ”

“I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.”

“The woman who thinks she is intelligent demands equal rights with men. A woman who is intelligent does not.”

“Minne, pâle comme une nuit de lune, se réchauffe, un peu blessée, à ce feu de couleurs, et parfois, toute nue au soleil, un miroir à la main, cherche en vain, à travers son corps mince, l'ombre plus noire de son squelette élégant.”

“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.”

“When she raises her eyelids, it's as if she were taking off all her clothes.”

“There is no doubt that, if ever my heart were to call my master Chance by another name, I should make an excellent Catholic.”

“I have found my voice again and the art of using it...”

“Chance, my master and my friend, will, I feel sure, deign once again to send me the spirits of his unruly kingdom. All my trust is now in him- and in myself. But above all in him, for when I go under he always fishes me out, seizing and shaking me like a life-saving dog whose teeth tear my skin a little every time. So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days. ”

“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. ”

“Time spent with a cat is never wasted.”