Gustave Flaubert (Narrator)

"The past haunts us more than the present torments us."

"He lived as though life owed him nothing."

"Happiness is a pursuit that ends in despair."

"She gathered lovers as others gather flowers."

"The truth is often too ugly to bear."

"Desire outlasts affection by years."

"She was trapped between two worlds, belonging to neither."

"Society judges women by impossible standards."

"He endured rather than lived."

"The promises of lovers are written on water."

"She purchased dreams at the cost of her soul."

"Boredom is the true plague of existence."

"He could not see beyond his own narrow perspective."

"Pity is often mistaken for love."

"Illness is sometimes a refuge from life's demands."

"She was beautiful precisely because she was unhappy."

"Success belongs only to those with no scruples."

"Longing is the only pleasure she truly knew."

"He mistook weakness for gentleness."

"Words are often substitutes for genuine feeling."

"She exhausted herself chasing phantoms."

"The soul dies before the body does."

"She was like a woman waking from a dream, finding herself in a strange bed."

"The heart, like the stomach, requires rest sometimes."

"Behind every great man stands a woman rolling her eyes."

"She had loved him in her imagination; now reality was crushing that love."

"Money is the root of all happiness, or so people think."

"Art without life is merely decoration."

"The provincial mind sees no further than its own steeple."

"Nothing great is ever accomplished without passion and ruin."