When Somerset Maugham wrote a book everyone would say, `Oh, God, who is Willie writing about now?` When Flaubert wrote `Emma Bovary` twenty women said they were Emma. I start writing with a theme in my mind. Then I start asking, what kind of a personality? And because I have a good ear, I unconsciously pick up certain people. But that doesn`t mean those people have led that life. Going back to Shakespeare`s time, there was a Hamlet, but not such as he wrote it.
- Jacqueline Susann(Explaining to The New York Times how he wrote the script for Rocky (1976) in three days) I`m astounded by people who take 18 years to write something. That`s how long it took that guy (Gustave Flaubert) to write "Madame Bovary". And was that ever on the best-seller list? No. It was a lousy book and it made a lousy movie.
- Sylvester StalloneI love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing.
- Amanda Hillier