Gustave Flaubert

"A memory is a beautiful thing, it's almost a desire that you miss."

"A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man."

"Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough."

"Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom."

"But the disparaging of those we love always alienates us from them to some extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt comes off in our hands."

"Here is true immorality: ignorance and stupidity; the devil is nothing but this. His name is Legion."

"I am a man-pen. I feel through the pen, because of the pen."

"I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings."

"Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings."

"Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in."

"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."

" One mustn't look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attracts us."

" The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe."

" The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet."

" The more humanity advances, the more it is degraded."