Daily Inspiration Quote by Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

Colette turns a food fetish into a manifesto of appetite: not the tasteful little want, but the full-bodied, borderline improper demand. “Too many truffles” is the point. The line refuses the polite economy that tells women (and artists, and anyone who has been trained into “good sense”) to be satisfied with a small portion, a reasonable indulgence, a manageable desire. If the only acceptable craving is a moderated one, Colette opts out entirely. No compromise, no dainty gratitude.

The comedy is clipped and weaponized. Truffles are a luxury, yes, but also a kind of performance: the expensive ingredient that signals refinement while courting decadence. By insisting on excess, Colette exposes how “taste” often functions as social discipline. The choice isn’t really between truffles and no truffles; it’s between living by someone else’s approved proportions or living in a way that’s unabashedly self-authored.

Context matters: Colette’s career is a long argument for sensual authority. From the Claudine novels through her later work, she writes bodies and hungers with a candor that scandalized and fascinated Belle Epoque France. This line carries that signature: pleasure as a serious claim, not a guilty secret. It also hints at artistic ethics. If she can’t have the rich, unruly version of a thing - desire, freedom, language - she won’t counterfeit it in miniature. Better abstinence than a watered-down life that pretends to be enough.