Em Forster Quotes

EM Forster never gets any further than warming the tea pot ... Is it not beautifully warm? Yes, but there ain't going to be no tea. ~ Katherine Mansfield

we may say that History develops, Art stands still ~ E. M. Forster

Miss Abbott, don't worry over me. Some people are born not to do things. I'm one of them. ~ E. M. Forster

[EM] Forster was the only living writer whom he would have described as his master. In other people's books he found examples of style which he wanted to imitate and learn from. In Forster he found a key to the whole art of writing. The Zen masters of archery - of whom, in those days, Christopher had never heard - start by teaching you the mental attitude with which you must pick up the bow. A Forster novel taught Christopher the mental attitude with which he must pick up the pen. ~ Christopher Isherwood

So he was queer, E.M. Forster. It wasn't his middle name (that would be 'Morgan'), but it was his orientation, his romping pleasure, his half-secret, his romantic passion. In the long-suppressed novel Maurice the title character blurts out his truth, 'I'm an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.' It must have felt that way when Forster came of sexual age in the last years of the 19th century: seriously risky and dangerously blurt-able. The public cry had caught Wilde, exposed and arrested him, broken him in prison. He was one face of anxiety to Forster; his mother was another. As long as she lived (and they lived together until she died, when he was 66), he couldn't let her know. ~ Michael Levenson

You have not been yourself all day," said Henry, and rose from his seat with face unmoved. Margaret rushed at him and seized both his hands. She was transfigured.
"Not any more of this!" she cried. "You shall see the connection if it kills you, Henry! You have had a mistress - I forgave you. My sister has a lover - you drive her from the house. Do you see the connection? Stupid, hypocritical, cruel - oh, contemptible! - a man who insults his wife when she's alive and cants with her memory when she's dead. A man who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin other men. And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not responsible. These men are you. You can't recognise them, because you cannot connect. I've had enough of your unneeded kindness. I've spoilt you long enough. All your life you have been spoiled. Mrs. Wilcox spoiled you. No one has ever told what you are - muddled, criminally muddled. Men like you use repentance as a blind, so don't repent. Only say to yourself, 'What Helen has done, I've done. ~ E.M. Forster

You respect women, you little fuckin' shit. It was a fuckin' woman who carried you around in her fuckin' body, fuckin' birthed you, and fuckin' loved
you. And it's gonna be a woman who keeps you warm at night, who lets you inside her body, and it's gonna be a woman who carries around your fuckin' children. You fuckin' respect that, you feel me? You fuckin' respect women - all of 'em - or I will end you. ~ Madeline Sheehan

She had a strong, if erroneous, conviction of her own futility, and wished she had never come out of her backwater, where nothing happened except art and literature, and where no one ever got married or succeeded in remaining engaged. ~ E.M. Forster

If you ain't killin' 'em, maybe your point ain't sharp enough. ~ Kevin Welch

Mummies and dogs! You can beat 'em, kick 'em, treat 'em as shabbily as you like--they will eternally forgive you and still come back for more. Such degree of devotion is as hard to grasp as it is unshakable. Being a child, I had no comprehension of it. It embarrassed me. I regularly ran away from it; in fact, I still do. ~ Christopher Plummer

Say my shoe game nuts so I call em cashews Every other city it's another Nicki tattoo ~ Nicki Minaj

I'll be a flop in movies. Besides, I don't like 'em, and I never did believe there was a place called Hollywood. Somebody made it up! ~ Patsy Kelly

To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it. ~ E. M. Forster

I actually do quite well in Omaha. It's one of my better games. I love pot-limit Omaha and Omaha high-low. I do quite well in them. If I play in a casino, I usually play some kind of mixed game with Omaha and hold 'em. ~ Chris Moneymaker

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

The teenagers aren't all bad. I love 'em if nobody else does. There ain't nothing wrong with young people. Jus' quit lyin' to 'em. ~ Moms Mabley

Things out o' natur niver thrive: God A'mighty doesn't like 'em. ~ George Eliot

Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid intercourse, from which the previous civilization had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. What was the good of going to Peking when it was just like Shrewsbury? Why return to Shrewsbury when it would all be like Peking? Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul. ~ E. M. Forster

They say the shoe can always fit, no matter whose foot it's on. These days feel like I'm squeezing in 'em. Who ever wore 'em before just wasn't thinking big enough, I'm about to leave 'em with 'em ~ Drake

You need to have camaraderie in the clubhouse. Wherever you're working, be it a baseball team or at a business, you want to walk in there and say, 'Geez, it's great to be at work. Let's go get 'em,' as opposed to walking in there knowing there's going to be a commotion. ~ Pat Gillick

Bass! How low can you go?
Death row ... what a brother know.
Once again, back is the incredible,
The rhyme animal, the uncannable "D!"
Public Enemy Number One.
Five-O said, "Freeze!" and I got numb.
Can I tell 'em that I really never had a gun?
But it's the wax that the Terminator X spun. ~ Chuck D

On my honor, I ain't ever tasting another woman's sexual
favors. Even if the bakery offers 'em up in a cupcake wrapper and
calls 'em whipped dreams. ~ Jamie Farrell

Mattresses! Beautiful! Let's go buy a couple of mattresses. Give 'em to people for their birthday. ~ Lawrence Tierney

They used to say of me that I'd as many lucky escapes as Harry Smith!'
'Shouldn't be at all surprised: I've seen one of 'em myself,' Brough said cryptically. ~ Georgette Heyer

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

When I first started I didn't know a lot about the job, so I kinda had to figure it out by wire, ya know? It was hit and miss, I made mistakes, and fortunately I was able to recover from most of 'em. But I promised myself if I ever get to a point where I can help somebody that's trying to learn how to do this, that I would try to do that. ~ Billy Joel

A critic has no right to the narrowness which is the frequent prerogative of the creative artist. ~ E. M. Forster

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

A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. People pontificate, "Suicide is selfishness." Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call it a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reasons: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's audience with one's mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching. The only selfishness lies in ruining strangers' days by forcing 'em to witness a grotesqueness. So I'll make a thick turban from several towels to muffle the shot and soak up the blood, and do it in the bathtub, so it shouldn't stain any carpets. Last night I left a letter under the manager's day-office door - he'll find it at eight A.M. tomorrow - informing him of the change in my existential status, so with luck an innocent chambermaid will be spared an unpleasant surprise. See, I do think of the little people ~ David Mitchell

But you just watch, little girl. I'm goin' to show 'em. In five years they'll come crawlin' to me on their bellies. I don't know what it is, but I got a kind of feel for the big money. ~ John Dos Passos

I knew you read the Symposium in the vac," he said in a low voice.
Maurice felt uneasy.
"Then you understand - without me saying more - "
"How do you mean?"
Durham could not wait. People were all around them, but with eyes that had gone intensely blue he whispered, "I love you. ~ E. M. Forster

In the deepest pits of 'Ell, Where the worst defaulters dwell (Charcoal devils used as fuel as you require 'em), There's some lovely coloured rays, Pyrotechnical displays, But you can't expect the burning to admire 'em! ~ Edgar Wallace

We all have biases whether we admit it or not. Based on our vast experiences, upbringing, influences, choices and more. My question is, can you check 'em at the door? And can you expand your capacity for understanding such that you are able to love even more? Before you judge, look within. Know that you might not even know. Then we can find common ground and continue to expand our hearts for anyone in need of more love. Humanity depends on it. ~ Julieanne O'Connor

Do you remember Italy? ~ E. M. Forster

It only takes 30 seconds to pluck my eyebrows, but it hurts. I have to tweeze 'em in the middle once a week. Otherwise, I look like Bert from 'Sesame Street.' ~ Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Wall Street is being investigated, but they are not asleep while it's being done. You see where the Senate took that tax off the sales of stocks, didn't you? Saved 'em $48,000,000. Now, why don't somebody investigate the Senate and see who got to them to get that tax removed? That would be a real investigation. ~ Will Rogers

The Three-Decker

"The three-volume novel is extinct."

Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.
It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail;
But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best -
The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.

Fair held the breeze behind us - 'twas warm with lovers' prayers.
We'd stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.
They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,
And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.

By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook,
Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took
With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed,
And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.

We asked no social questions - we pumped no hidden shame -
We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came:
We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell.
We weren't exactly Yussufs, but - Zuleika didn't tell.

No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared,
The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.
'Twas fiddle in the forc's'le - 'twas garlands on the mast,
For every one got married, and I went ashore at last.

I left 'em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.
I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques.
In endl ~ Rudyard Kipling