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.
Gustave FlaubertRead
Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resemblance.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the uniqueness of each sentence in a book, likening them to individual leaves in a forest.
Gustave Flaubert compares the sentences in a book to leaves in a forest, highlighting that while they may appear similar, each one holds its own distinct character and significance. This analogy suggests the importance of individuality in literature, where each sentence contributes uniquely to the overall narrative or theme, just as every leaf contributes to the beauty and diversity of a forest.
Themes
LiteratureSentencesIndividualityUniqueWriting
In practice
Example use cases
During a book club discussion about the intricacies of writing, one might quote Flaubert to illustrate the importance of each sentence.
More from Gustave Flaubert
All quotes βShe loved the sea for its storms alone, cared for vegetation only when it grew here and there among ruins. She had to extract a kind of personal advantage from things and she rejected as useless everything that promised no immediate gratification β for her temperament was more sentimental than artistic, and what she was looking for was emotions, not scenery.
Gustave FlaubertRead
In the dark room a cloud of yellow dust flew from beneath the tool like a scatter of sparks from under the hooves of a galloping horse. The twin wheels turned and hummed. Binet was smiling, his chin down, his nostrils distended. He seemed lost in the kind of happiness which, as a rule, accompanies only those mediocre occupations that tickle the intelligence with easy difficulties, and satisfy it with a sense of achievement beyond which there is nothing left for dreams to feed on.
Gustave FlaubertRead
It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.
Gustave FlaubertRead
Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.
Gustave FlaubertRead
Whatever the thing you wish to say, there is but one word to express it, but one verb to give it movement, but one adjective to qualify it; you must seek until you find this noun, this verb, this adjective.
Gustave FlaubertRead
Similar quotes
You want in all cases for the story to get through the writing.
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Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of the mouths of other people.
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In memoir, you have to be particularly careful not to alienate the reader by making the material seem too lived-in. It mustn't have too much of the smell of yourself, otherwise the reader will be unable to make it her own.
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I sent The World Well Lost to one editor who rejected it on sight, and then wrote a letter to every other editor in the field warning them against the story, and urging them to reject it on sight without reading it.
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I am, when you stop to think of it, a member of a fairly select group: the final handful of American novelists who learned to read and write before they learned to eat a daily helping of video bullshit.
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