"Writing this book I am like a man playing the piano with lead balls attached to his knuckles."
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Quote collection
Gustave Flaubert quotes (page 15 of 15)
299 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Success is a consequence and must not be a goal. I've never sought it (though I desire it) and seek it less and less."
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"Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry."
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"The citadel of Machaerus rose east of the Dead Sea on a basalt Peak shaped like a cone, girdled by four deep valleys; two about its sides, one in front, and the fourth behind."
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"I do not like to "interest" the public with myself."
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"Emma was no asleep, she was pretending to be asleep; and, while he was dozing off at her side, she lay awake, dreaming other dreams."
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"He loved the extensive vaults where you could hear the night birds and the sea breeze; he loved the craggy ruins bound together by ivy, those dark halls, and any appearance of death and destruction. Having fallen so far from so high a position, he loved anything that had also fallen from a great height"
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"Come, let’s be calm: no one incapable of restraint was ever a writer."
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"I am finding it very hard to get my novel started. I suffer from stylistic abscesses; and sentences keep itching without coming to a head."
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"La parole humaine est comme un chaudron fe" le o u' nous battons des me lodies a' faire danser les ours, quand on voudrait attendrir les e toiles. Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when all the time we are longing to move the stars to pity."
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"She did not believe that things could remain the same in different places, and since the portion of her life that lay behind her had been bad, no doubt that which remained to be lived would be better."
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"We should not touch our idols: their gilding will remain on our hands."
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"Madame Aubain's servant Felicite was the envy of the ladies of Pont-l'Eveque for half a century."
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"DOCTOR. Always preceded by 'The good'. Among men, in familiar conversation, 'Oh! balls, doctor!' Is a wizard when he enjoys your confidence, a jack-ass when you're no longer on terms. All are materialists: 'you can't probe for faith with a scalpel.'"
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"The great natures which are good, are above everything generous and don't begrudge the giving of themselves."
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"Iced champagne was served, and the feel of the cold wine in her mouth gave Emma a shiver that ran over her from head to toe."
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"But the most wretched thing, is it not-is to drag out, as I do, a useless existence. If our pains were only of some use to someone, we should find consolation in the thought of the sacrifice."
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"The morality of art is in its very beauty."
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"The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family."
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