Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resemblance. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
Writing this book I am like a man playing the piano with lead balls attached to his knuckles. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
Books are made not like children but like pyramids and they're just as useless! And they stay in the desert! Jackals piss… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
“An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.” — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
The citadel of Machaerus rose east of the Dead Sea on a basalt Peak shaped like a cone, girdled by four deep… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
They took each other's advice, opened one book, went over to another, then did not know what to decide when opinions diverged… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
What better occupation, really, than to spend the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind beating on the windows… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
Before her marriage she had thought that she had love within her grasp; but since the happiness which she had expected this… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
He loved a book because it was a book; he loved its odor, its form, its title. What he loved in a… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
What seems beautiful to me, what I should like to write, is a book about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external,… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
“Haven't you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you've had, some obscure idea that returns from… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
What I would like to write is a book about nothing, a book without exterior attachments, which would be held together by… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
Melancholy is a sensual pleasure that is deliberately provoked. How many people shut themselves away to make themselves sadder, or to weep… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
Books aren't made in the way that babies are: they are made like pyramids. There's some long-pondered plan, and then great blocks… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague “she” of all the poetry books. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
Madame Aubain's servant Felicite was the envy of the ladies of Pont-l'Eveque for half a century. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
And indeed, what is better than to sit by one's fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
As for the piano, the faster her fingers flew over it, the more he marveled. She struck the keys with aplomb and ran from… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
Caught up in life, you see it badly. You suffer from it or enjoy it too much. The artist, in my opinion, is a… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
“When one does something, one must do it wholly and well. Those bastard existences where you sell suet all day and write poetry at… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
“But her life was as cold as an attic facing north; and boredom, like a silent spider, was weaving its web in the shadows,… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
And indeed, what is better than to sit by one's fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against the window… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
One's existence should be in two parts: one should live like a bourgeois and think like a demigod. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
Emma was no asleep, she was pretending to be asleep; and, while he was dozing off at her side, she lay awake, dreaming other… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
