Quotes from Maurice

E.M. Forster ·  256 pages

Rating: (20.4K votes)


“You confuse what's important with what's impressive.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“You do care a little for me, I know... but nothing to speak of, and you don't love me. I was yours once till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now... and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“I am an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“Did you ever dream you had a friend, Alec? Someone to last your whole life and you his. I suppose such a thing can’t really happen outside sleep.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn't have bothered to write otherwise. 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, and in this sense, Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice



“After all, is not a real Hell better than a manufactured Heaven?”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“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.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“There has been, is, and always will be every conceivable type of person.  ”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“Words deserted him immediately. He could only speak when he was not asked to.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice



“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, quote from Maurice


“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.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“There was something better in life than this rub­bish, if only he could get to it—love—nobility—big spaces where passion clasped peace, spaces no science could reach, but they existed for ever, full of woods some of them, and arched with majestic sky and a friend. . .”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“Because I say so little you think I don't feel. I care a lot.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“He educated Maurice, or rather his spirit educated Maurice's spirit, for they themselves became equal. Neither thought "Am I led; am I leading?" Love had caught him out of triviality and Maurice out of bewilderment in order that two imperfect souls might touch perfection.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice



“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?”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“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 . . . .”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“Why children?' he asked. 'Why always children? For love to end where it begins is far more beautiful, and Nature knows it.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“When love flies it is remembered not as love but as something else. Blessed are the uneducated, who forget it entirely, and are never conscious of folly or pruriency in the past, of long aimless conversations.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“You mean that a Frenchman could share with a friend and yet not go to prison?’
‘Share? Do you mean unite? If both are of age and avoid public indecency, certainly.’
‘Will the law ever be that in England?’
‘I doubt it. England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice



“They had never struggled, and only a struggle twists sentimentality and lust together into love.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“He knew that loneliness was poisoning him, so that he grew viler as well as more unhappy.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“... And now we shan't be parted no more, and that's finished.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“He had awoken too late for happiness, but not for strength, and could feel an austere joy, as of a warrior who is homeless but stands fully armed.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice



“They cared for no one, they were outside humanity, and death, had it come, would only have continued their pursuit of a retreating horizon.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“He was obliged however to throw over Christianity. Those who base their conduct upon what they are rather than upon what they ought to be, always must throw it over in the end . . . .”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“When love flies it is remembered not as love but as something else.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“It's miles worse for you than that; I'm in love with your gamekeeper.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice


“A slow nature such as Maurice's appears insensitive, for it needs time even to feel.”
― E.M. Forster, quote from Maurice



About the author

E.M. Forster
Born place: in Marylebone, London, England, The United Kingdom
Born date January 1, 1879
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“In your madness you said you loved me," she murmured shyly.

His humor fled, and the smile left her lips as she continued, "You said it before, too. When the storm struck, I asked you to love me, and you said you did." Her voice was the barest of whispers.

Ruark's gaze turned away from her, and he rubbed the bandage on his leg before he spoke. "Strange that madness should speak the truth, but truth it is." He met her questioning eyes directly. "Aye, I love you." The pain of longing marked his face with a momentary sadness. "And that is madness, in all truth."

Shanna raised herself form his side and sat on her heels, staring down at him. "Why do you love me?" Her tone was wondrous. "I beset you at every turn. I deny you as a fit mate. I have betrayed you into slavery and worse. There is no sanity in your plea at all. How can you love me?"

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Ruark caressed Shanna's arm and turned her face to him, making her look into his eyes and willing her to see the truth in them as he spoke.

"My beloved Shanna. I cannot think of betrayal when I think of love. I can count no denials when I hold you close. I only wait for that day when you will say, 'I love."

Shanna raised her hands as if to plead her case then let them fall dejectedly on her knees. Tears coursed down her cheeks, and she begged helplessly, "But I do not want to love you." She began to sob. "You are a colonial. You are untitled, a murderer condemned, a rogue, a slave. I want a name for my children. I want so much more of my husband." She rolled her eyes in sudden confusion. "And I do not want to hurt you more."

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“Without darkness, nothing comes to birth, As without light, nothing flowers.”
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