Quote

I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.

Gustave Flaubert

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gustave Flaubert
Age: 58 †
Born: 1821
Born: December 12
Died: 1880
Died: May 8
Novelist
Writer
Flaubert
Within
Reproduce
Sound
Irritated
True
Hears
Writing
Precisely
Like
Refuse
Fingers
Ears
Whose
Violinist

More quotes by Gustave Flaubert

Image
We have all been beaten! Each one has to bear his misfortune! Resign yourself!
Gustave Flaubert
Image
Only three things are infinite. The sky in its stars, the sea in its drops of water, and the heart in its tears.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
The cult of art gives pride one never has too much of it.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
Life must be a constant education one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
I detest my fellow-beings and do not feel that I am their fellow at all
Gustave Flaubert
Image
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.'
Gustave Flaubert
Image
I invite all brats to throw their cookies at the baker's head if they're not sweet, winos to chuck their wine if it's bad, the dying to shuck their souls when they croak, and men to throw their existence in God's face when it's bitter
Gustave Flaubert
Image
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.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times...The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of - I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters - I live and breath with them.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
L'Ide e seule est e ternelle et ne cessaire. The idea alone is eternal and necessary.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away to regions of purity, and there grow young again.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
As you get older, the heart shed its leaves like a tree. You cannot hold out against certain winds. Each day tears away a few more leaves and then there are the storms that break off several branches at one go. And while nature’s greenery grows back again in the spring, that of the heart never grows back.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
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.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
Stupidity is an immovable object: you can't try to attack it wiithout being broken by it.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
I have dreamed much and have done very little.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resemblance.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
I had, as I told you, a great passion while still almost a child. When it was over, I divided myself in two, placing on one side the soul I kept for Art, and on the other, my body, which would have to fend for itself.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.
Gustave Flaubert