The lovesick, the betrayed, and the jealous all smell alike.

Colette’s line compresses a sharp psychological observation into a sensory metaphor. By saying that the lovesick, the betrayed, and the jealous “all smell alike,” she suggests that different romantic torments—yearning, injury, suspicion—produce a common human residue: the same anxious self-absorption, the same bodily stress, the same telltale vulnerability. The choice of “smell” is deliberately unglamorous; it punctures romantic idealization and implies that passion’s darker states are not unique badges of destiny but recurring, recognizable conditions. The remark also hints at social perception: others can “sense” these emotions on us, however much we try to conceal them.