Quotes from E.M. Forster

Though none of his difficulties had been solved, none were added, which is something. The hush continued. He was less troubled by carnal thoughts. He stood still in the darkness instead of groping about in it, as if this was the end for which body and soul had been so painfully prepared.

She too is enamoured of heavy winds, and vast panoramas, and green expanses of the sea.

He was not attracted to the man in the sense that he wanted him for a friend, but he did feel he might help him – how, he didn't formulate. It was all very obscure, for the mountains still overshadowed Maurice. Risley, surely capering on the summit, might stretch him a helping hand.

But though she spent nearly seven lire, the gates of liberty seemed still unopened.

Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over.

Against my will I have become normal. I cannot help it.

I can give points to a picture, I dare say,' said Maurice, having glanced at the Michelangelo. 'Clive, you're a silly little fool, and since you've brought it up I think you're beautiful, the only beautiful person I've ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you.

Oniton, like herself, was imperfect. Its apple-trees were stunted, its castle ruinous. It, too, had suffered in the border warfare between the Anglo-Saxon and the Kelt, between things as they are and as they ought to be.

was not natural that men of different characters and tastes should be intimate, and

Let Squalor be turned into Tragedy, whose eyes are the stars, and whose hands hold the sunset and the dawn.

The real thing's money and all the rest is a dream.

There was indeed something rather incongruous in Lucy's moral outburst over Mr. Eager. It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay her vocation; that a woman's power and charm reside in mystery, not in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive.

He was a good average Englishman who had slipped.

love is eternal.

They slept separate at first, as if proximity harassed them, but towards morning a movement began, and they woke deep in each other's arms.

Once more the west was retreating, once again the orderly stars were dotting the eastern sky. There is certainly no rest for us on the earth. But there is happiness, and as Margaret descended the mound on her lover's arm, she felt that she was having her share.

Maurice did not understand, but the voice soothed him.

This was 'oliday, London with Maurice, all troubles over, and he wanted to drowse and waste time, and tease and make love.

To Margaret this life was to remain a real force. She could not despise it, as Helen and Tibby affected to do. It fostered such virtues as neatness, decision, and obedience, virtues of the second rank, no doubt, but they have formed our civilisation. They form character, too; Margaret could not doubt it; they keep the soul from becoming sloppy. How dare Schlegels despise Wilcoxes, when it takes all sorts to make a world?

It was a land of facilities, where nothing had to be striven for, and success was indistinguishable from failure.

You all right, Maurice?' – for he had sighed. 'You comfortable? Rest your head on me more, the way you like more … that's it more, and Don't You Worry. You're With Me. Don't Worry.

All heroic endeavour, and all that is known as art, assumes that there is such a background, just as all practical endeavour, when the world is to our taste, assumes that the world is all.

But who can explain Westminster Bridge Road or Liverpool Street in the morning -- the city inhaling -- or the same thorough-fares in the evening -- the city exhaling her exhausted air? We reach in desperation beyond the fog, beyond the very stars, the voids of the universe are ransacked to justify the monster, and stamped with a human face.

Look at that picture, for instance. I love it because, like the painter himself, I love the subject. I don't judge it with eyes of the normal man. There seem two roads for arriving at Beauty—one is in common, and all the world has reached Michelangelo by it, but the other is private to me and a few more.