The most exaggerated speeches usually hid the weakest of feelings - as though the fullness of the soul did not overflow into the emptiest phrases, since no one can ever express the exact measure of his needs, his conceptions or his sorrows, and human speech is like a cracked pot on which we beat out rhythms for bears to dance to when we are striving to make music that will wring tears from the stars

Under this aspect Flaubert exercised an extraordinary influence over Guy de Maupassant Edmond de Goncourt Alphonse Daudet and Zola. His Œuvres Complètes (8 vols. Flaubert's lean and precise[citation needed] writing style has had a large influence on 20th century writers such as Franz Kafka and J.

Gustave Flaubert (French: [ɡystav flobɛʁ]; December 12 1821 – May 8 1880) was a French writer who is counted among the greatest novelists in Western literature. He is known especially for his first publiGustave Flaubertd novel Madame Bovary (1857) for his Correspondence and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.