Colette

Hope costs nothing.

A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.

We only do well the things we like doing.

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

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.

Total absence of humor renders life impossible.

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.

The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.

I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.