5 Gustave Flaubert Quotes on Longing

Gustave Flaubert quotes on longing

23. It seemed to her that certain portions of the earth must produce happiness -- as thought it were a plant native only to those soils and doomed to languish elsewhere. Why couldn't she be leaning over the balcony of some Swiss chalet? Or nursing her melancholy in a cottage in Scotland, with a husband clad in a long black velvet coat and wearing soft leather shoes, a high-crowned hat and fancy cuffs?

28. The music was still throbbing in her ears, and she forced herself to stay awake in order to prolong the illusion of this luxurious life she would so soon have to be leaving. . . . She longed to know all about their lives, to penetrate into them, to be part of them.

30. Though she had no one to write to, she had bought herself a blotter, a writing case, a pen and envelopes; she would dust off her whatnot, look at herself in the mirror, take up a book, and then begin to daydream and let it fall to her lap. . . . She wanted to die. And she wanted to live in Paris.

66. 'Ah!' she said, lifting her lovely tear-bright eyes to the ceiling. 'If you knew all the dreams I've dreamed!'

75. Often, when they spoke of Paris, she would murmur: 'Ah! How happy we'd be, living there!' 'Aren't we happy here?' the young would softly ask, passing his hand over her hair.