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.
Interpretation
Staying astonished keeps us youthful and open to life's wonders.
In this quote, Colette expresses that experiencing astonishment is essential to maintaining a sense of wonder and vitality as we age. Rather than succumbing to the cynicism that can accompany growing older, she emphasizes the importance of staying curious and appreciative of the world around us, which in turn helps to keep our spirits youthful and alive.
In practice
Using this quote in a motivational speech about embracing life's surprises at a retirement party.
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.
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.
I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.
It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.
So he tasted the deep pain that is reserved only for the strong, just as he had tasted for a little while the deep happiness.
We say no to a lot of things so we can invest an incredible amount of care on what we do.
I had a very brilliant father who was not only intellectual, but was street-smart and very curious to boot. The day I found out that he didn't know everything, I grew up. It was a shock. I just thought that the man was the end-all of everything, and he knew the answer to everything. Then I found out I'd have to find out my own answers.
Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.
You are inexperienced. So was I, once. So is every man. The measure of a person is not how much they have lived. . . It's in how they make us of what life has shown them.
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