"When one does something, one must do it wholly and well. Those bastard existences where you sell suet all day and write poetry at night are made for mediocre minds – like those horses that are equally..."
- Gustave Flaubert
"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."
"An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere."
"Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living."
"You don’t make art out of good intentions."
"The public wants work which flatters its illusions."
"It would have been better to do what everyone else does, neither taking life too seriously nor seeing it as merely grotesque, choosing a profession and practicing it, grabbing one's share of the commo..."
"When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women"
"Books aren’t made in the way that babies are: they are made like pyramids, There’s some long-pondered plan, and then great blocks of stone are placed one on top of the other, and it’s back-breaking, s..."
"In my view, the novelist has no right to express his opinions on the things of this world. In creating, he must imitate God: do his job and then shut up."