Quote by Colette: “What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.”

The life you are living right now may be the one you will later look back on with aching fondness. Colette is pointing to one of the most common human regrets — that we recognize the richness of an experience only after it has passed, when we can no longer return to it.

Colette was writing and performing throughout the 1920s, a period of intense social and artistic ferment in Paris. France was rebuilding after the First World War's catastrophic losses, and the period's ferocious appetite for pleasure was inseparable from an awareness of how quickly life could be taken away.

French novelist and performer whose work explored female desire, independence, and the natural world with lyrical directness and subversive wit. Her major works include the Claudine series, Chéri, and Gigi; she was the first woman to receive a state funeral in France.