"Her childhood, then her adolescence, had taught her patience, hope, silence and the easy manipulation of the weapons and virtues of all prisoners."

Colette Literature See all quotes by Colette →

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“It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.”

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

“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.”

“You do not notice changes in what is always before you.”

“It’s nothing to be born ugly. Sensibly, the ugly woman comes to terms with her ugliness and exploits it as a grace of nature. To become ugly means the beginning of a calamity, self-willed most of the time.”

“As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow.”

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"There is an unnatural unfitness in an aristocracy to be legislators for a nation. Their ideas of distributive justice are corrupted at the very source. They begin life trampling on all their younger b…"

— Thomas Paine

Politics1737–1809

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"... and the wolf chewed up the children and spit out their bones ... But those were Foreign Children and it really didn't matter ..."

— Dr. Seuss

Literature1904–1991

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"How can I call security a woman's primary fantasy if I am saying it is also her primary need? Because while her primary need is the security of a home and a family circle, her primary fantasy is that …"

— Warren Farrell

Science1943

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"Life doesn't happen in chapters — at least, not regular ones. Nor do movies. Homer didn't write in chapters. I can see what their purpose is in children's books but I'm blessed if I know what function…"

— Terry Pratchett

Literature1948–2015

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