“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.”
God
“I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.”
WorkAll Quotes by Gustave Flaubert
“The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family.”
Family“Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.”
Hope“There are neither good nor bad subjects. From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things.”
Art“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
Work“Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.”
Poetry“Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness nothing but faith, faith and freedom.”
Art“Of all lies, art is the least untrue.”
Art“The cult of art gives pride one never has too much of it.”
Art“Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.”
History“The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.”
Diet“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”
Art“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.”
Nature“A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies.”
Death“To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.”
Happiness“Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.”
Art“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
Music“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.”
Age“The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.”
Art“Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.”
Poetry