The most important quality of art and its aim is illusion; emotion, which is often obtained by certain sacrifices of poetic detail, is something else entirely and of an inferior order. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
My life which I dream will be so beautiful, so poetic, so vast, so filled with love will turn out to be like everybody else's - monotonous, sensible, stupid. — 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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
“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 Image
When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
