Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary Quotes

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.

But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted.

As for the piano, the faster her fingers flew over it, the more he marveled. She struck the keys with aplomb and ran from one end of the keyboard to the other without a stop.

She was as sated with him as he was tired of her. Emma had rediscovered in adultery all the banality of marriage.

But vilifying those we love always detaches us from them a little. We should not touch our idols: their gilding will remain on our hands.

For six months, then, Emma, at fifteen years of age, made her hands dirty with books from old lending libraries.

Is it not time to cry that the blind shall see, the deaf hear, the lame walk? But that which fanaticism formerly promised to its elect, science now accomplishes for all men.

Speech is a rolling-mill that always thins out the sentiment.

Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fin

Every notary carries about inside him the debris of a poet.

Not a lawyer but carries within him the debris of a poet.

Some details escaped her, but the regret remained with her.

Charles went to kiss her shoulder.-Leave me alone! she said, you're creasing my dress.

Haven't you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you've had, some obscure idea that returns from afar and that seems to express completely your most subtle feelings?

An infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space.

The smooth folds of her dress concealed a tumultuous heart, and her modest lips told nothing of her torment. She was in love.

Self-confidence depends on environment: one does not speak in the same tone in the drawing room than in the kitchen.

One's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accept all the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.

And she felt as though she had been there, on that bench, for an eternity. For an infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space.

Financial demands, of all the rough winds that blow upon our love, (are) quite the coldest and the most biting.

Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling.

...those works that don't touch the heart, it seems to me, miss the true aim of Art.