Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living. - Gustave Flaubert

"Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live."

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

"The public wants work which flatters its illusions."

"Of all lies, art is the least untrue."

"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."