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.