Gustave Flaubert

The cult of art gives pride one never has too much of it.

The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.

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.

You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.

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

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

Of all lies, art is the least untrue.

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.

I have the handicap of being born with a special language to which I alone have the key.

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.