# Colette's most beautiful quotes

"A total absence of humour makes life impossible", "What would I have done with a life that was nothing but roses?" and the big house that only smiled on one side: Colette's most quoted lines, from My Mother's House to Chance Acquaintances and her music reviews, with their source.

- 28 votes · 12 items
- Mar 7, 2021 · Romain Joly
- https://even.best/en/l/5158/colette-s-most-beautiful-quotes

## Top 12

1. **A total absence of humour makes life impossible.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Chance Acquaintances (1940).
2. **But what would I have done with a life that was nothing but roses?** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — My Apprenticeships (1936).
3. **What you find is not always worth what you leave behind.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Chance Acquaintances (1940).
4. **A woman fighting her own pain is a sight one may call edifying.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Chance Acquaintances (1940).
5. **A big, solemn, forbidding house with its orphanage doorbell… a house that only smiled on one side.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — My Mother's House (1922).
6. **A conjecture seems unique to us because we are not subtle enough to see that it mirrors… an identical old coincidence.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Chance Acquaintances (1940).
7. **Mlle Dangès warbles such a deplorable aria from Les Huguenots that she keeps her eyes shut the whole time so as not to see what she is singing.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — At the Concert (1903).
8. **I love feminine courage, its ingenuity in organizing a wounded life.** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Chance Acquaintances (1940).
9. **In those days, chocolate was made with cocoa, sugar and vanilla.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — My Mother's House (1922).
10. **The garden spiders, because of the cooler nights, came back in the evening to the toy shed and lined up quietly on the ceiling.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Ripening Seed (1923).
11. **The Viscountess de Trédern sang Ève as best she could. Her best was the enemy of the good.** (-1 · ▲0 ▼1) — At the Concert (1903).
12. **The wisteria that spills from my childhood garden over the rue des Vignes.** (-2 · ▲1 ▼3) — For a Herbarium (1948).

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.