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805d0a1
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It happened like this, if it happened at all. I would rather go up to heaven by myself than be pushed by cherubs.
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E.M. Forster |
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e38dbbf
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When that strange race nears the dust and is condemned as untouchable, then nature remembers the physical perfection that she accomplished elsewhere, and throws out a god--not many, but one here and there, to prove to society how little its categories impress her.
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E.M. Forster |
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7e43a21
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What had spoken to her in that scoured-out cavity of the granite? What dwelt in the first of the caves? Something very old and very small. Before time, it was before space also. Something snub-nosed, incapable of generosity -- the undying worm itself. Since hearing its voice, she had not entertained one large thought, she was actually envious of Adela. All this fuss over a frightened girl! Nothing had happened, 'and if it had,' she found he..
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E.M. Forster |
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4698db5
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It never bored them to hear words, words; they breathed them with the cool night air.
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E.M. Forster |
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a14de6e
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Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralyzed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it...
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E.M. Forster |
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efd9e76
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They must live outside class, without relations or money; they must work and stick to each other till death. But England belonged to them. That, besides companionship, was their reward. Her air and sky were theirs, not the timorous millions' who own stuffy little boxes, but never their own souls.
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happiness
love
homosexuality
england
lgbt
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E.M. Forster |
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12b6a22
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It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square mile, and that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven.
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howards-end
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E.M. Forster |
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6df0364
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She walked about disdainfully, unwilling to be enthusiastic over monuments of uncertain authorship or date.
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touring
museums
tourism
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E.M. Forster |
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57326d1
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No English novelist is as great as Tolstoy -that is to say, has given so complete a picture of man's life, both on its domestic and heroic side. No English novelist has explored man's soul as deeply as Dostoyevsky. And no novelist anywhere has analysed the modern consciousness as successfully as Marcel Proust.
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E.M. Forster |
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5cc6012
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Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilizations of the past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his income would have corresponded. But in his day the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and proclaiming, "All men are equal--all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas..."
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equality
inequality
democracy
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E.M. Forster |
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882cd17
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When they sat it was nearly always in the same position - Maurice in a chair, and Durham at his feet, leaning against him. In the world of their friends this attracted no notice. Maurice would stroke Durham's hair.
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E.M. Forster |
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46cd001
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And again and again fell the word, like the ebb of a dying sea. "Good-bye."
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simile
howards-end
figurative-language
parting
goodbye
sad
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E.M. Forster |
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9f03a21
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Love is the best, and the more she let herself love him, the more chance was there that he would set his soul in order.
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E.M. Forster |
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6a76887
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An engagement is so potent a thing that sooner or later it reduces all who speak of it to this state of cheerful awe.
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E.M. Forster |
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5c94daa
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It is so difficult--at least, I find it difficult--to understand people who speak the truth.
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E.M. Forster |
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d949615
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Lucy was slow to follow what people said, but quick enough to detect what they meant. She missed Cecil's epigram, but grasped the feeling that prompted it.
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E.M. Forster |
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82a0dd1
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I had no right to move out of my books and music, which was what I did when I met you
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E.M. Forster |
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77030b5
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No one, except Ronny, had any idea of what passed in her mind, and he only dimly, for where there is officialism every human relationship suffers.
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E.M. Forster |
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e1d93b7
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So does my grocer stigmatize me when I complain of the quality of his sultanas, and he answers in one breath that they are the best sultanas, and how can I expect the best sultanas at that price?
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E.M. Forster |
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dc7cb44
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The hedge was a half-painted picture which would be finished in a few days.
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E.M. Forster |
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e44da6a
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He had dulled his craving for verbal truth and cared chiefly for truth of mood.
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E.M. Forster |
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8e21bfc
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The song of the future must transcend creed.
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E.M. Forster |
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3404fc3
|
We are not in the law courts. There are many ways of being a man; mine is to express what is deepest in my heart.
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E.M. Forster |
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45ab246
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Oh, hang it all! what's the good--I mean, the good of living in a room for ever? There one goes on day after day, same old game, same up and down to town, until you forget there is any other game. You ought to see once in a way what's going on outside, if it's only nothing particular after all.
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E.M. Forster |
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bd26650
|
When real things are so wonderful, what is the point of pretending?
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E.M. Forster |
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ca47ad8
|
He chanced to be in a lucid critical mood, and would not sympathize with exaltation.
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E.M. Forster |
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37d20b3
|
innocence is not safe in a civilization like ours, where a man must practice a 'ruled undemonstrative distrustfulness' in order to defend himself against traps. This 'ruled undemonstrative distrustfulness' is not confined to business men, but exists everywhere. We all exercise it. I know I do, and I should be surprised if you, who are listening to me, didn't. All we can do (and Melville gives us this hint) is to exercise it consciously, as ..
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E.M. Forster |
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598c69f
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But man is an odd, sad creature as yet, intent on pilfering the earth, and heedless of the growths within himself. He cannot be bored about psychology. He leaves it to the specialist, which is as if he should leave his dinner to be eaten by a steam-engine. He cannot be bothered to digest his own soul.
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E.M. Forster |
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143aeaa
|
He never retorted that the artist is not a bricklayer at all, but a horseman whose business it is to catch Pegasus at once, not to practise for him by mounting tamer colts. This is hard, hot and generally ungraceful work, but it is not drudgery. For drudgery is not art, and cannot lead to it.
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E.M. Forster |
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b7dda14
|
And she began the oft-told tale of a lady of imperial descent who could find no husband in the narrow circle where her pride permitted her to mate, and had lived on unwed, her age now thirty, and would die unwed, for no one would have her now.
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old-maid
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E.M. Forster |
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1532932
|
But when she saw Evie at the entrance of the restaurant, staring fiercely at nothing after the fashion of athletic women, her heart failed her anew. Miss Wilcox had changed perceptibly since her engagement. Her voice was gruffer, her manner more downright, and she was inclined to patronize the more foolish virgin. Margaret was silly enough to be pained at this. Depressed at her isolation, she saw not only houses and furniture, but the vesse..
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E.M. Forster |
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8f80181
|
How fortunate that it was an 'unconventional' party, where formalities are ruled out! On this basis Aziz found the English ladies easy to talk to, he treated them like men. Beauty would have troubled him, but Mrs Moore was so old and Miss Quested so plain that he was spared this anxiety.
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E.M. Forster |
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8479d1a
|
A word of advice. Don't take up that sentimental attitude over the poor. See that she doesn't, Margaret. The poor are poor, and one's sorry for them, but there it is. As civilisation moves forward, the shoe is bound to pinch in places, and it's absurd to pretend that any one is responsible personally. Neither you, nor I, nor my informant, nor the man who informed him, nor the directors of the Porphyrion, are to blame for this clerk's loss o..
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E.M. Forster |
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453ed10
|
Perhaps it was Helen's way of falling in love--a curious way to Margaret, whose agony and whose contempt of Henry were yet imprinted with his image. Helen forgot people. They were husks that had enclosed her emotion.
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E.M. Forster |
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1369be6
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Disdaining the heroic outfit, excitable in her methods, garrulous, episodical, shrill, she misled her lover much as she misled her aunt. He mistook her fertility for weakness. He supposed her "as clever as they make 'em," but no more, not realizing that she was penetrating to the depths of his soul, and approving of what she found there."
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E.M. Forster |
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af66bf9
|
It was English, and the wych-elm that she saw from the window was an English tree. No report had prepared her for its peculiar glory. It was neither warrior, nor lover, nor god; in none of these roles do the English excel. It was a comrade, bending over the house, strength and adventure in its roots, but in its utmost fingers tenderness, and the girth, that a dozen men could not have spanned, became in the end evanescent, till pale bud clus..
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tree
english
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E.M. Forster |
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8116f99
|
They had started speaking of "women and children" - that phrase that exempts the male from sanity when it has been repeated a few times. Each felt that all he loved best in the world was at stake, demanded revenge, and was filled with a not unpleasing glow..."
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E.M. Forster |
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45c0ab0
|
He had no racial feeling--not because he was superior to his brother civilians, but because he had matured in a different atmosphere, where the herd instinct does not flourish.
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|
E.M. Forster |
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e2abee4
|
They chose to regard it as a miraculous preservation.
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gratitude
providence
|
E.M. Forster |
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88960cb
|
Liking one person is an extra reason for liking another.
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|
E.M. Forster |
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50cba7e
|
In every remark he found a meaning, but not always the true meaning, and his life, though vivid, was largely a dream.
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spirituality
meaning-of-life
|
E.M. Forster |
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6277207
|
He had robbed the body of its taint, the world's taunts of their sting; he had shown her the holiness of direct desire.
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|
E.M. Forster |
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cace9e6
|
One was tired of everything, it seemed. One launched into enthusiasms only to collapse gracefully, and pick oneself up amid sympathetic laughter.
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|
E.M. Forster |
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383fe53
|
A slow nature such as Maurice's appears insensitive, for it needs time even to feel. Its instinct is to assume that nothing either for good or evil has happened, and to resist the invader. Once gripped, it feels acutely, and its sensations in love are particularly profound. Given time, it can know and impart ecstasy; given time, it can sink to the heart of Hell.
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love
lgbt
|
E.M. Forster |