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.
Accept the things I cannot change," I said. "And pray for the courage to change the things I can, as well as the wisdom to know the difference." The thing is... I know this is good advice. It's called the Serenity Prayer, and it really does put things in perspective (it's suppose to be for recovering alcoholics, but it helps recovering freakoutaholics, like me, as well).
I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.
Once you've learned to think you can't stop. And an enormous number of people devote their lives to keeping their minds busy and feel extremely uncomfortable with silence.
Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.
Life changes for the better when we realize that we don't have to know everything and we don't have to pretend we do.
Sounded like a load of waffle to me." "There was some important stuff hidden in the waffle.
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