Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, 1873 - 1954
Born: 28 January 1873, Saint-Sauveur-en Puisaye, Yonne, France
Died: 3 August 1954, Paris, France
At twenty Colette married a man fifteen years her senior who cheated on her and locked her in a room every day until she had written her required pages. He then published her books under his name and kept the money. She left him in 1906 and took to the music halls of Paris, the next year she was performing at the Moulin Rouge with one of her female lovers when an on-stage kiss caused a riot and their show was banned. She married a newspaper editor, during the World War I she wrote an opera with Maurice Ravel and turned her husband's estate into a hospital, entering the Legion of Honour as a Chevalier in 1920. (She would be elevated to the rank of Grand Officer in 1953.) After having an affair with her step-son she divorced in 1924, marrying again in 1935. During the second war she hid her Jewish husband in an attic and managed to assist a number of other Jews. She continued to write, publishing over fifty novels, including Gigi in 1945. In her last years she was homebound due to arthritis but continued write. She was the first woman ever to receive a state funeral in France, but the Roman Catholic church refused a funeral mass because of her divorces.
Biography from Wikipedia and Authors' Calendar
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette quotes:
Quotes found : 62 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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- A woman who thinks she is intelligent demands the same rights as man. An intelligent woman gives up. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - Be happy. It's one way of being wise. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - Boredom helps one to make decisions. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - Bulldogs are adorable, with faces like toads that have been sat on. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - By means of an image we are often able to hold on to our lost belongings. But it is the desperateness of losing which picks the flowers of memory, binds the bouquet. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - Mes Apprentissages (1936) - Can it be that chance has made me one of those women so immersed in one man that, whether they are barren or not, they carry with them to the grave the shriveled innocence of an old maid? permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - Don't ever wear artistic jewellery; it wrecks a woman's reputation. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - For to dream and then to return to reality only means that our qualms suffer a change of place and significance. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - Her childhood, then her adolescence, had taught her patience, hope, silence and the easy manipulation of the weapons and virtues of all prisoners. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - Hope costs nothing. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - Humility has its origin in an awareness of unworthiness, and sometimes too in a dazzled awareness of saintliness. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - The Pure and the Impure (1932) - I have found my voice again and the art of using it. permalink
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette - The Vagabond (1910)
Quotes found : 62 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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