E. M. Forster Quotes - Page 12

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I really don't know what happens next -- one so seldom does.

E. M. Forster

Doe, Next, Happens

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If only the sense of actuality can be lulled-and it sleeps for ever in most historians-there is no passion that cannot be gratified in the past.

E. M. Forster

Passion, Sleep, Past

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As for 'story' I never yet did enjoy a novel or play in which someone didn't tell me afterward that there was something wrong with the story, so that's going to be no drawback as far as I'm concerned. "Good Lord, why am I so bored" "I know; it must be the plot developing harmoniously." So I often reply to myself, and there rises before me my special nightmare that of the writer as craftsman, natty and deft.

E. M. Forster

Play, Bored, Special

Selected Letters (1983-1985): Letter 104, to Forrest Reid, June 19, 1912.

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England still waits for the supreme moment of her literature--for the great poet who shall voice her, or, better still, for the thousand little poets whose voices shall pass into our common talk.

E. M. Forster

Voice, Poetry, Waiting

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.733, Delphi Classics

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Logic! Good gracious! What rubbish!

E. M. Forster

Rubbish, Literature, Logic

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.152, RosettaBooks

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The woman who can't influence her husband to vote the way she wants ought to be ashamed of herself.

E. M. Forster

Husband, Literature, Want

E.M. Forster (2015). “Howard's End”, p.206, Xist Publishing

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There is much good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We are children, playing or quarrelling on the line.

E. M. Forster

Children, Good Luck, Literature

'The Longest Journey' (1907) ch. 12

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Only a struggle twists sentimentality and lust together into love.

E. M. Forster

Struggle, Lust, Together

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Be soft, even if you stand to get squashed.

E. M. Forster

Squash, Literature, Ifs

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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.

E. M. Forster

Funny, Beauty, Humor

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.134, RosettaBooks

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I never could get on with representative individuals but people who existed on their own account and with whom it might therefore be possible to be friends.

E. M. Forster

People, Might, Individual

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One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own joys and interests- wife, children, snug little home. That's where we practical fellows'- he smiled-'are more tolerant than you intellectuals. We live and let live, and assume that things are jogging on fairly well elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain man may be trusted to look after his own affairs.

E. M. Forster

Children, Home, Men

E.M. Forster “Howards End”, Рипол Классик

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An acquaintance had become a lover, might become a husband, but would retain all that she had noted in the acquaintance; and love must confirm an old relation rather than reveal a new one.

E. M. Forster

Husband, And Love, Might

E. M. Forster (2016). “Howards End: England Literature”, p.151, 谷月社

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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.

E. M. Forster

Giving, World, Easier

E.M. Forster (2012). “A Room with a View”, p.62, Courier Corporation

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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. Such a wrong is not easily forgotten. Never again did she expose herself without due consideration and precaution against rebuff. And such a wrong may react disastrously upon the soul.

E. M. Forster

Love, Taken, Soul

E.M. Forster (2012). “A Room with a View”, p.63, Courier Corporation

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I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children.

E. M. Forster

Children, People, Behinds

E. M. Forster (2010). “A Passage to India”, p.119, RosettaBooks

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I am an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.

E. M. Forster

Oscars, Wilde, Unspeakable

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Hardship is vanishing, but so is style, and the two are more closely connected than the present generation supposes.

E. M. Forster

Two, Style, Generations

"Two Cheers for Democracy". Book by E. M. Forster, 1951.

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Are not beauty and delicacy the same?

E. M. Forster

Delicacy, Room With A View

Gabrielle Vigot, Monica Corwin, Pan Zador, Coco Rousseau, Alexandre Dumas (2015). “Literary Love: 5 Wild and Wanton Classics”, p.1082, Simon and Schuster

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It is pleasant to be transferred from an office where one is afraid of a sergeant-major into an office where one can intimidate generals, and perhaps this is why history is so attractive to the more timid among us. We can recover self-confidence by snubbing the dead.

E. M. Forster

Self Confidence, History, Office

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We are all like Scheherazade's husband, in that we want to know what happens next.

E. M. Forster

Husband, Literature, Want

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.47, RosettaBooks

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A novel is based on evidence, + or -x, the unknown quantity being the temperament of the novelist, and the unknown quantity always modifies the effect of the evidence, and sometimes transforms it entirely.

E. M. Forster

Novelists, Fiction, Sometimes

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It is the function of the novelist to reveal the hidden life at its source: to tell us more about Queen Victoria than could be known, and thus to produce a character who is not the Queen Victoria of history.

E. M. Forster

Queens, Character, Novelists

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.72, RosettaBooks

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All that is observable in a man-that is to say his actions and such of his spiritual existence as can be deduced from his actions-falls into the domain of history.

E. M. Forster

Spiritual, Fall, Men

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.73, RosettaBooks

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Intuition attracts those who wish to be spiritual without any bother, because it promises a heaven where the intuitions of others can be ignored.

E. M. Forster

Spiritual, Heaven, Promise

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E. M. Forster

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Born: January 1, 1879
Died: June 7, 1970
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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