Edward Morgan Forster citations

Page 4

“But it struck him that people are not really dead until they are felt to be dead. As long as there is some misunderstanding about them, they possess a sort of immortality.”

“The crime of suicide lies rather in its disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave behind.”

“Nature pulls one way and human nature another.”

“They had nothing in common but the English language.”

“A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would register the quick motions of man.”

“I swear from the bottom of my heart I want to be healed. I want to be like other men, not this outcast whom nobody wants.”

“Of course he despised the world as a whole; every thoughtful man should; it is almost a test of refinement.”

“Don't be mysterious; there isn't the time.”

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

“Don't go fighting against the Spring.”

“Though life is very glorious, it is difficult.”

“We move between two darknesses.”

“Sometimes I think too much fuss is made about marriage. Century after century of carnal embracement and we're still no nearer to understanding one another.”

“The advance of regret can be so gradual that it is impossible to say "yesterday I was happy, today I am not.”

“There has been, is, and always will be every conceivable type of person.”

“Then she lay on her back and gazed at the cloudless sky. Mr. Beebe, whose opinion of her rose daily, whispered to his niece that that was the proper way to behave if any little thing went wrong.”

“Words deserted him immediately. He could only speak when he was not asked to.”

“To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it.”

“All men are equal - all men, that is, who possess umbrellas.”

“A work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned.”

“Excuse my mistakes, realize my limitations. Life is not easy as we know it on the earth.”

“She must be assured that it is not a criminal offense to love at first sight.”

“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.”

“I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows.”

“You told me once that we shall be judged by our intentions, not by our accomplishments. I thought it a grand remark. But we must intend to accomplish - not sit intending on a chair.”

“Nothing's the same for anyone. That's why life's this Hell, if you do a thing you're damned, and if you don't you're damned….”

“Because I say so little you think I don't feel. I care a lot.”

“It is thus, if there is any rule, that we ought to die--neither as victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who can greet with an equal eye the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he must leave.”

“I was yours once 'till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now - I can't hang about whining forever - and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness?”