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.

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.