There are neither good nor bad subjects. From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things. – 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
Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution. – Gustave Flaubert
Heres my rule: You always want to pay cash for your own books, because if they look at the name on the credit card and then they look at the name on the book jacket, then theres this look of such profound sympathy for you that you had to resort to this. It really is withering. – Carl Hiaasen