Zitate von Colette

„Ich ging, um die wenigen persönlichen Gegenstände zu sammeln, die ... für mich von unschätzbarem Wert waren: meine Katze, meine Entschlossenheit zu reisen, und meine Einsamkeit.“

—  Colette

„Du wirst törichte Dinge tun, aber tue sie mit Begeisterung.“

—  Colette

„Unsere perfekten Gefährten haben nie weniger als vier Füße.“

—  Colette

„Hoffnung kostet nichts.“

—  Colette

„Vielleicht werde ich im Spiegel nun bald eine freudestrahlende Mitsou sehen. Vielleicht auch eine weinende. Auf jeden Fall aber wird es nicht mehr die Mitsou von früher sein. Diese dumme, diese vernünftige, die nicht lachte und niemals weinte, diese arme Mitsou, die nichts hatte, nicht einmal einen eigenen Kummer.“

—  Colette, buch Mitsou

Mitsou, ou Comment l'esprit vient aux filles

„Es gibt im Leben nur drei große Ereignisse: den Tod, die Berühmtheit oder die Liebe. Mein lieber blauer Leutnant, welches von den dreien wird mir wohl als erstes auf den Kopf oder ins Herz fallen?“

—  Colette, buch Mitsou

Mitsou, ou Comment l'esprit vient aux filles

„Wo die Moral sich nicht überall einnistet. Ich habe einen Sittenrichter geboren.“

—  Colette

Cheri and The Last of Cheri

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

—  Colette

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

—  Colette

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

—  Colette

„Nothing ages a woman like living in the country.“

—  Colette

L'Envers du music hall (Music Hall Sidelights), "On Tour" (1913)

„Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come…“

—  Colette

Barks and Purrs
Kontext: Toby-Dog: It seems to me that of the two of us it's you they make the most of, and yet you do all the grumbling.
Kiki-The-Demure: A dog's logic, that! The more one gives the more I demand.
Toby-Dog: That's wrong. It's indiscreet.
Kiki-The-Demure: Not at all. I have a right to everything.
Toby-Dog: To everything? And I?
Kiki-The-Demure: I don't imagine you lack anything, do you?
Toby-Dog: Ah, I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come...
Kiki-The-Demure: And then what dreadful thing happens?
Toby-Dog: You know very well! Inevitably, at that moment She appears, carrying a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it — Castor Oil!

„Hope costs nothing.“

—  Colette

„Time spent with a cat is never wasted.“

—  Colette

„You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.“

—  Colette

New York World-Telegram and Sun (1961)

„I went to collect the few personal belongings which… I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.“

—  Colette

„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."

(, 1964)“

—  Colette

„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.“

—  Colette

Freedom (1908)
Quelle: Oeuvres complètes en seize volumes

„There are no ordinary cats.“

—  Colette