Quotes from E.M. Forster

But, once in the open air, she paused. Some emotion - pity, terror, love, but the emotion was strong - seized her, and she was aware of autumn. Summer was ending, and the evening brought her odours of decay, the more pathetic because they were reminiscent of spring. That something or other mattered intellectually? A leaf, violently agitated, danced past her, while other leaves lay motionless. That the earth was hastening to re-enter darkness, and the shadows of those trees over Windy Corner?

El amor había fallado. El amor era una emoción a través de la cual podías a veces gozarte a ti mismo. No podía dar frutos.

She remembered again that ten square miles are not ten times as wonderful as one square mile, that a thousand square miles are not practically the same as heaven. The phantom of bigness, which London encourages, was laid forever when she paced from the hall at Howard's End to its kitchen and heard the rains run this way and that where the watershed of the roof divided them.

Clive, did I hurt you?' 'No.' 'My darling, I didn't mean to.' 'I'm all right.' They looked at one another for a moment before beginning new lives. 'What an ending,' he sobbed, 'what an ending.

By sacrificing good taste, this worship achieved what Christianity has shirked: the inclusion of merriment. All spirit as well as all matter must participate in salvation, and if practical jokes are banned, the circle is incomplete.

Alec no era un héroe ni un dios, sino un hombre inmerso en una sociedad como él, para el que el mar y los bosques y la fresca brisa y el sol no preparaban ninguna apoteosis.

But they did not chatter much, for the boy, when he liked a person, would as soon sit silent in his company as speak.

Viu que Durham [Clive] não só era esperto como tinha também uma mente ordenada e tranquila. Sabia o que queria ler, onde estava mais fraco, e até aquilo em que os professores o podiam ajudar. Não tinha nem a fé cega nos tutores e nas aulas, como Maurice e o seu grupo, nem o desprezo professado por Fetherstonhaugh. -------------------------------------------------- p.42, MAURICE, E.M.FORSTER

They led a life that she could not attain to—the outer life of 'telegrams and anger,' which had detonated when Helen and Paul had touched in June, and had detonated again the other week.

Qua story, it can only have one merit: that of making the audience want to know what happens next. And conversely it can only have one fault: that of making the audience not want to know what happens next.

How dare Schlegels despise Wilcoxes, when it takes all sorts to make a world?

You show so very clearly that intelligence and sympathy are superficial - good enough things in their way - they do what they can and would gladly do more; but the real thing is "being there", and the worst of it is, no two human beings can be in the same place

yet, have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time—beautiful?

And, fatigued by the merciless and enormous day, he lost his usual sane view of human intercourse, and felt that we exist not in ourselves, but in terms of each others' minds—a notion for which logic offers no support and which had attacked him only once before...

Maurice e Clive] Voltaram a falar de teologia, com Maurice a defender a Redenção. Perdeu. Viu que não tinha qualquer noção da existência de Cristo ou da sua bondade, e talvez tivesse mesmo pena se tal pessoa existisse. O seu desagrado pelo Cristianismo cresceu e aprofundou-se. Em dez dias desistiu de comungar, em três semanas deixou de ir a todas as missas que podia. ----------------------------------------------- p.56, MAURICE, E.M. FORSTER

Oh, horrible—worst of all—worse than death, when you have made a little clearing in the wilderness, planted your little garden, let in your sunlight, and then the weeds creep in again!

It is I who am sorry," said Miss Lavish. "We literary hacks are shameless creatures. I believe there's no secret of the human heart into which we wouldn't pry.

She doesn't attract me,' said Maurice pettishly. 'Oh Mr Hall, what an ungallant remark. Look at her lovely hair.' 'I like short hair best.' 'Why?' 'Because I can stroke it—

She only felt that the candle would burn better, the packing go easier, the world be happier, if she could give and receive some human love. The impulse had come before to-day, but never so strongly.

Perhaps we woke up one another. I like to think that anyway.

This famous building had arisen, that was doomed. To-day Whitehall had been transformed; it would be the turn of Regent Street to-morrow. And month by month the roads smelt more strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human beings heard each other speak with greater difficulty, breathed less of the air, and saw less of the sky. Nature withdrew; the leaves were falling by midsummer; the sun shone through dirt with an admired obscurity.

He had failed, and that wasn't the saddest: he had seen Alex fail. In a way they were one person. Love had failed. Love was an emotion through which you occasionally enjoyed yourself. It could not do things.

It was the closing of a book that would never be read again, and better close such a book than leave it lying about to get dirtied.

La Máquina es mucho, pero no lo es todo. Ahora veo a algo que se parece a ti en esta placa, pero no te veo a ti. Oigo algo que se parece a ti en este teléfono, pero no te oigo a ti.