It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal. E. M. Forster More Quotes by E. M. Forster More Quotes From E. M. Forster It is so difficult - at least, I find it difficult - to understand people who speak the truth. E. M. Forster difficult speak people Why can't we be friends now?" said the other, holding him affectionately. "It's what I want. It's what you want." But the horses didn't want it — they swerved apart: the earth didn't 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 didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices "No, not yet," and the sky said "No, not there. E. M. Forster horse rocks views When we were only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you're always protecting me... I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can't I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through you? A woman's place! E. M. Forster shields faces hands Man can learn everything if he will but try. E. M. Forster ifs trying men It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, "She loves young Emerson." A reader in Lucy's place would not find it obvious. Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome "nerves" or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire. She loved Cecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the phrases should have been reversed? E. M. Forster practice should-have desire Do you suppose there's any difference between spring in nature and spring in man? But there we go, praising the one and condemning the other as improper, ashamed that the same laws work eternally through both. E. M. Forster law spring men 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. E. M. Forster passing reason action Don't be mysterious; there isn't the time. E. M. Forster mysterious It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer either deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave. E. M. Forster rebel piano world Do you remember Italy? E. M. Forster remember I only wish the poets would say this too: love is of the body; not the body, but of the the body. Ah! the misery that would be saved if we confessed that! Ah! for a little directness to liberate the soul! E. M. Forster soul wish love-is Man has to pick up the use of his functions as he goes along- especially the function of Love. E. M. Forster function use men 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. E. M. Forster too-much understanding thinking She stopped and leant her elbows against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at times a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship. E. M. Forster magic elbows identity If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting--both for us and for her. E. M. Forster exciting missing play I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. E. M. Forster room-with-a-view shields insult If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious. E. M. Forster universe ifs stories The businessman who assumes that his life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and on that, to hit the truth. ‘Yes, I see, dear; it’s about half-way between,’ Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not halfway between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to ensure sterility. E. M. Forster aunt secret years I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it — and I'm sure I can't tell you whether the fate's good or evil. I don't die — I don't fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it when I'm just not there. E. M. Forster fate falling-in-love moving The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius. E. M. Forster gains men moving
