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Quotes by E.M. Forster

Mr Abrahams was a preparatory schoolmaster of the old-fashioned sort. He cared neither for work nor games, but fed his boys well and saw that they did not misbehave. The rest he left to the parents, and did not speculate how much the parents were leaving to him. Amid mutual compliments the boys passed out into a public school, healthy but backward, to receive upon undefended flesh the first blows of the world.

He had known so much about her once -what she thought, how she felt, the reasons for her actions. And now he only knew that he loved her, and all the other knowledge seemed passing from him just as he needed it most.

He educated Maurice, or rather his spirit educated Maurices spirit, for they themselves became equal. Neither thought Am I led; am I leading? Love had caught him out of triviality and Maurice out of bewilderment in order that two imperfect souls might touch perfection.

I can only do whats easy. I can only entice and be enticed. I cant, and wont, attempt difficult relations. If I marry it will either be a man whos strong enough to boss me or whom Im strong enough to boss. So I shant ever marry, for there arent such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do marry, for I shall certainly run away from him before you can say Jack Robinson.

And if insight were sufficient, if the inner life were the whole of life, their happiness has been assured.

we may say that History develops, Art stands still

Science explained people, but could not understand them.

Science is better than sympathy, if only it is science.

I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.

A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you cant expect an apostle to peer out.

Margaret had often wondered at the disturbance that takes place in the worlds waters when Love, who seems so tiny a pebble, slips in. Whom does Love concern beyond the beloved and the lover? Yet his impact deluges a hundred shores,

Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people- there are many of them- who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our interests and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling around them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a definite name for such behaviour- flirting- and if carried far enough, it is punishable by law. But no law- not public opinion, even- punishes those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as intolerable. Was she one of these?

Why cant we be friends now? said the other, holding him affectionately. Its what I want. Its what you want. But the horses didnt want it — they swerved apart: the earth didnt want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temple, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they emerged from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didnt want it, they said in their hundred voices No, not yet, and the sky said No, not there.

He had a theory that musicians are incredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they want and what they are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their friends; that their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet been understood.

I wont be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult.

Pity, if one can generalize, is at the bottom of woman. When men like us, it is for our better qualities, and however tender their liking, we dare not be unworthy of it, or they will quietly let us go. But unworthiness stimulates woman. It brings out her deeper nature, for good or for evil.

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

My father says that there is only one perfect view — the view of the sky straight over our heads, and that all these views on earth are but bungled copies of it.

Beauty ought to look a little surprised: it is the emotion that best suits her face.... The beauty who does not look surprised, who accepts her position as her due—she reminds us too much of a prima donna.