I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the idea that knowing someone too closely can diminish the allure of mystery in relationships.
Sidonie Gabrielle Colette's quote suggests that the intrigue and fascination we hold for people we do not know well can be lost when we allow ourselves to become closer to them. This apprehension stems from the belief that familiarity can strip away the enchanting layers that make individuals captivating, leaving behind the mundane aspects of their personalities. In essence, it highlights the tension between the desire for intimacy and the fear of losing the mystique that surrounds our perceptions of others.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the complexities of relationships during a psychology class.
It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.
Sit down and 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.
I went to collect the few personal belongings which...I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.
The only virtue on which I pride myself is my self-doubt; when a writer loses her self-doubt, the time has come to lay aside her pen.
You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.
Truffles must come to the table in their own stock and as you break open this jewel sprung from a poverty-stricken soil, imagine - if you have never visited it - the desolate kingdom where it rules.
Our greatest heart-treasure is a knowledge that there is in creation an individual to whom our existence is necessary - some one who is part of our life as we are part of theirs, some one in whose life we feel assured our death would leave a gap for a day or two.
The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned pricks more deeply and draws more blood.
It PASSED! Marriage equality in NY!! Yes!! Progress!! Thank you everyone who worked so hard on this!! A historic night!
LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; NY gets god-awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets. LA is a jungle.
The hearts of women are like those little pieces of furniture with secret hiding - places, full of drawers fitted into each other; you go a lot of trouble, break your nails, and in the bottom find some withered flower, a few grains of dust - or emptiness!
I am dead. I have no desire for you. My body no longer wants the one who doesnβt love.
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