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. – Gustave Flaubert
Caught up in life, you see it badly. You suffer from it or enjoy it too much. The artist, in my opinion, is a monstrosity, something outside of nature. – Gustave Flaubert
I have the handicap of being born with a special language to which I alone have the key. – Gustave Flaubert
It sometimes happens at the end of a dinner, when jokes and walnuts are cracked together, that the paternity of some trite quotation is put in question, and at once the wit of the whole company is set wool-gathering. – Frederic Swartwout Cozzens, “Phrases and Filberts,” Sayings, Wise and Otherwise