Gustave Flaubert

The faster the word sticks to the thought, the more beautiful is the effect.

I hate that which we have decided to call realism, even though I have been made one of its high priests.

What is the beautiful, if not the impossible.

I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity.

It seems to me that I have always existed and that I possess memories that date back to the Pharaohs.

The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him.

The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.

Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.

The cult of art gives pride; one never has too much of it.

Madame Bovary is myself.

I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.

One never tires of what is well written, style is life! It is the very blood of thought!

Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of genius, is, above all, force.

Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.

Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution.

Caught up in life, you see it badly. You suffer from it or enjoy it too much. The artist, in my opinion, is a monstrosity, something outside of nature.

The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.

Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it.

Exuberance is better than taste.

The future is the worst thing about the present.