Quotes from E.M. Forster

Mrs. Munt did not see, and indeed Margaret was making a most questionable statement—that any emotion, any interest once vividly aroused, can wholly die.

Still, he is a remarkably fine child for his age." Italian is a bad medium for condescension. The patronizing words came out gracious and sincere, and he smiled with pleasure.

It was nothing to him that Nature had caught up this dropped stitch in order to continue her pattern. While he had love he had kept reason.

The novelist defines the story with the following example: If you are told that the king died and then the queen died, that is a sequence of events. If you were told that the king died and then the queen died of grief, that is a story that he was interested.

That Mrs. Munt should be the first to discover the misfortune was not remarkable, for she was so interested in the flats, that she watched their every mutation with unwearying care. In theory she despised them — they took away that old-world look — they cut off the sun — flats house a flashy type of person.

Everything seems just alike in these days.

He picked up his friend, who was so weak that he began to cry. "Maurice – I'm a fool." "Be a fool," said Maurice, and carried him upstairs, undressed him, and put him to bed.

Her thought drew being from the obscure borderland. She could not explain in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy. It is necessary to prepare for an examination, or a dinner-party, or a possible fall in the price of stock: those who attempt human relations must adopt another method or fail.

Perhaps among those who took to the greenwood in old time there had been two men like himself – two. At times he entertained the dream. Two men can defy the world.

While the Gods are powerful, we learn little about them. It is only in their day of decadence that a strong light beats into heaven.

Indeed, he was sensitive rather than responsive. In every remark he found a meaning, but not always the true meaning, and his life, though vivid, was largely a dream.

independent thoughts are in nine cases out of ten the result of independent means

They were his last words, because Maurice had disappeared thereabouts, leaving no trace of his presence except a little pile of the petals of the evening primrose, which mourned from the ground like an expiring fire.

It is not difficult to stand above the conventions when we leave no hostages among them; men can always be more unconventional than women, and a bachelor of independent means need encounter no difficulties at all.

He never did his dumb-bells or played in his school fifteen. But the muscles came. He thinks they came while he was reading Pindar.

Her brain darted up and down; it grew pliant and strong. Her conclusion was that any human being lies nearer to the unseen than any organization, and from this she never varied.

As civilization moves forward, the shoe is bound to pinch in places

Their message was not of eternity, but of hope on this side of the grave.

Lucy was suffering from the most grievous wrong which this world has yet discovered: diplomatic advantage had been taken of her sincerity, of her craving for sympathy and love.

I'm a holy man minus the holiness

Disaster had shown her her limitations, and he realized now what a fine loyal character she was. Her humility was touching. She never repined at getting the worst of both worlds; she regarded it as the due punishment of her stupidity.

All of us, even the sophisticated, yearn for permanence, and to the unsophisticated permanence is the chief excuse for a work of art.

for they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores.

There are many ways of being a man; mine is to express what is deepest in my heart.