M. Forster
M. Forster
sex age mating
Sex begins before adolescence, and survives sterility; it is indeed coeval with our lives, although at the mating age its effects are more obvious to Society.
umpires shadow room-with-a-view
We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand.
squash literature ifs
Be soft, even if you stand to get squashed.
knowledge science giving
Science explained people, but could not understand them. After long centuries among the bones and muscles it might be advancing to knowledge of the nerves, but this would never give understanding
age growing emotion
Growing old is an emotion which comes over us at almost any age; I had it myself between the ages of 25 and 30.
mind atheism half
Sudden conversion ... is particularly attractive to the half-baked mind.
character fighting artist
But I have seen my obstacles: trivialities, learning and poetry. This last needs explaining: the old artist's readiness to dissolve characters into a haze. Characters cannot come alive and fight and guide the world unless the novelist wants them to remain characters.
sex believe fall
The story of the Fall always fascinates me as a play ground, but I cannot find any profound meaning in it, because of my 'liberal' view of human nature: I cannot believe in a state of original innocence, still less in a profound meaning in it, and I am always minimising the conception and the extent of Sin and the sinfulness of sex.
play bored special
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.
wall war nerves
Before the civil war, Pottibakia was a normal member of the Comity of Nations. She erected tariff walls, broke treaties, persecuted minorities, obstructed at conferences unless she was convinced there was no danger of a satisfactory solution; then she strained every nerve in the cause of peace.
lying mirrors historical
A mirror does not develop because an historical pageant passes in front of it. It only develops when it gets a fresh coat of quicksilver in other words, when it acquires new sensitiveness; and the novel's success lies in its own sensitiveness, not in the success of its subject matter.
age horror middle
The middle age of buggers is not to be contemplated without horror.
past clouds students
Pity wraps the student of the past in an ambrosial cloud, and washes his limbs with eternal youth.
america rather sure
America is rather like life. You can usually find in it what you look for. It will probably be interesting, and it is sure to be large.