Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubertwas an influential French novelist who was perhaps the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary, for his Correspondence, and for his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics. The celebrated short story writer Guy de Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth12 December 1821
CityRouen, France
CountryFrance
In my view, the novelist has no right to express his opinions on the things of this world. In creating, he must imitate God: do his job and then shut up.
You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.
It's a delicious thing to write. To be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating.
Equality is slavery. That is why I love art.
Books are made not like children but like pyramids and they're just as useless! And they stay in the desert! Jackals piss at their foot and the bourgeois climb up on them.
You must not think that feeling is everything. . . . Art is nothing without form.
Print: to see one's name in print! - Some people commit a crime for no other reason
Poetry is as exact a science as geometry
She (Madame Bovary) had that indefinable beauty that comes from happiness, enthusiasm, success - a beauty that is nothing more or less than a harmony of temperament and circumstances
I maintain that ideas are events. It is more difficult to make them interesting, I know, but if you fail the style is at fault.
Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.
By dint of railing at idiots you run the risk of becoming idiotic yourself
By dint of railing at idiots, one runs the risk of becoming idiotic oneself
Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.