DAGUERREOTYPE Will take the place of painting. (See…

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

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

“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

Isn’t ‘not to be bored’ one of the principal goals of life?

— Gustave Flaubert

Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.

— Gustave Flaubert

“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

When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women

— Gustave Flaubert

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.

— Gustave Flaubert

“We must not touch our idols; the gilt sticks to our fingers.”

— Gustave Flaubert

A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man.

— Gustave Flaubert

The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel.

— Gustave Flaubert

COLD. Healthier than heat.

— Gustave Flaubert

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

One's existence should be in two parts: one should live like a bourgeois and think like a demigod.

— Gustave Flaubert

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