Books Quotes by Gustave Flaubert

“Read in oreder to live”

— Gustave Flaubert

Read in order to live.

— Gustave Flaubert

“What a scholar one might be if one knew well only some half a dozen books.”

— Gustave Flaubert

“For six months, then, Emma, at fifteen years of age, made her hands dirty with books from old lending libraries.”

— Gustave Flaubert

Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of…

— Gustave Flaubert

The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy.

— Gustave Flaubert

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order…

— Gustave Flaubert

“An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.”

— Gustave Flaubert

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

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

The author, in his work, must be like God in the Universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.

— Gustave Flaubert

In her enthusiasms she had always looked for something tangible: she had always loved church for its flowers, music for its romantic…

— Gustave Flaubert

Let us not kid ourselves; let us remember that literature is of no use whatever, except in the very special case of…

— Gustave Flaubert

“In his earliest youth, he had drawn inspiration from really bad authors, as you may have seen from his style; as he…

— Gustave Flaubert

What better occupation, really, than to spend the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind beating on the windows…

— Gustave Flaubert

“Has it ever happened to you," Léon went on, "to come across some vague idea of one's own in a book, some…

— Gustave Flaubert

What I would like to write is a book about nothing, a book without exterior attachments, which would be held together by…

— Gustave Flaubert

Melancholy is a sensual pleasure that is deliberately provoked. How many people shut themselves away to make themselves sadder, or to weep…

— Gustave Flaubert

He loved a book because it was a book; he loved its odor, its form, its title. What he loved in a…

— Gustave Flaubert

“One ought to know everything, to write. All of us scribblers are monstrously ignorant. If only we weren’t lacking in stamina, what…

— Gustave Flaubert

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

I took Eugene Sue's Arthur from the reading-room. It's indescribable, enough to make you vomit. You have to read this to realize…

— Gustave Flaubert

My God, this novel makes me break out in a cold sweat! Do you know how much I've written in five months,…

— Gustave Flaubert

“To return to antiquity [in literature]: that has been done. To return to the Middle Ages: that too has been done. Remains…

— Gustave Flaubert

“There is a place they call La Pature, on the top of the hill, on the edge of the forest. Sometimes, on…

— Gustave Flaubert

Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resemblance.

— Gustave Flaubert

Writing this book I am like a man playing the piano with lead balls attached to his knuckles.

— Gustave Flaubert

“What could be better than to sit besides the fire with a book and a glowing lamp while the wind beats outside…

— Gustave Flaubert

“Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.”

— 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…

— Gustave Flaubert

“My novel is the rock to which I cling and I know nothing of what is taking place in the world.”

— Gustave Flaubert

She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague “she” of all the poetry books.

— Gustave Flaubert

I am finding it very hard to get my novel started. I suffer from stylistic abscesses; and sentences keep itching without coming…

— Gustave Flaubert

“The morality of art consists, for everyone, in the side that flatters its own interests. People do not like literature.”

— Gustave Flaubert

“Never have things of the spirit counted for so little. Never has hatred for everything great been so manifest – disdain for…

— Gustave Flaubert

What seems beautiful to me, what I should like to write, is a book about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external,…

— Gustave Flaubert

“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

“One thinks of nothing,’ he continued; ‘the hours slip by. Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and your thought, blinding…

— Gustave Flaubert

“So long as there is gold underneath, who cares about the dust on top? Literature! That old whore! We must try to…

— Gustave Flaubert

“Pellerin used to read every available book on aesthetics, in the hope of discovering the true theory of Beauty, for he was…

— Gustave Flaubert