Howards End Quotes

“But this is something quite new!" said Mrs. Munt, who collected new ideas as a squirrel collects nuts, and was especially attracted by those that are portable.

"New for me; sensible people have acknowledged it for years. You and I and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands. It is so firm beneath our feet that we forget its very existence. It's only when we see someone near us tottering that we realize all that an independent income means. Last night, when we were talking up here round the fire, I began to think that the very soul of the world is economic, and that the lowest abyss is not the absence of love, but the absence of coin."

"I call that rather cynical."

"So do I. But Helen and I, we ought to remember, when we are tempted to criticize others, that we are standing on these islands, and that most of the others are down below the surface of the sea. The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love no longer. We rich can. Imagine the tragedy last June if Helen and Paul Wilcox had been poor people and could not invoke railways and motor-cars to part them."

"That's more like Socialism," said Mrs. Munt suspiciously.

"Call it what you like. I call it going through life with one's hand spread open on the table. I'm tired of these rich people who pretend to be poor, and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the piles of money that keep their feet above the waves. I stand each year upon six hundred pounds, and Helen upon the same, and Tibby will stand upon eight, and as fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed—from the sea, yes, from the sea. And all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches; and because we don't want to steal umbrellas ourselves, we forget that below the sea people do want to steal them, and do steal them sometimes, and that what's a joke up here is down there reality—”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Ladies sheltering behind men, men sheltering behind servants - the whole system's wrong, and she must challenge it.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End: Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism

“Rudeness affected Margaret like a bitter taste in the mouth. It poisoned life. At times it is necessary, but woe to those who employ it without due need.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“In other words, they belong to types that could fall in love, but couldn't live together.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“To them Howards End was a house; they could not know that to her it had been a spirit, for which she sought a spiritual heir. And—pushing one step farther in these mists—may they not have decided even better than they supposed? Is it credible that the possessions of the spirit can be bequeathed at all? Has the soul offspring? A wych-elm tree, a vine, a wisp of hay with dew on it—can passion for such things be transmitted where there is no bond of blood?”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Much love. Modified love to Tibby. Love to Aunt Juley; how good of her to come and keep you company, but what a bore.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Can what they call civilization be right, if people mayn't die in the room where they were born?”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Their color slowly faded from out of the flowers; but their scent lingered to honey the air he breathed.”
― EM Forster

“We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are gentlefolk.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“I hope to risk things all my life."

"Oh, Margaret, most dangerous."

"But after all," she continued with a smile, "there's never any great risk as long as you have money."

"Oh, shame! What a shocking speech!"

"Money pads the edges of things," said Miss Schlegel. "God help those who have none.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Yes?" asked Margaret, for there was a long pause—a pause that was somehow akin to the flicker of the fire, the quiver of the reading-lamp upon their hands, the white blur from the window; a pause of shifting and eternal shadows.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Life is a mysterious business.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Mrs. Munt—such is human nature—determined that she would champion the lovers. She was not going to be bullied by a severe young man.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Mrs. Munt did not see, and indeed Margaret was making a most questionable statement—that any emotion, any interest once vividly aroused, can wholly die.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Her thought drew being from the obscure borderland. She could not explain in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy. It is necessary to prepare for an examination, or a dinner-party, or a possible fall in the price of stock: those who attempt human relations must adopt another method or fail.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“The friendship between Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox, which was to develop so quickly and with such strange results, may perhaps have had its beginnings at Speyer, in the spring.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“I love folklore and all festering superstitions.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“People at Stettin drop things into boats out of overhanging warehouses. At least, our cousins do, but aren't particularly rich. The town isn't interesting, except for a clock that rolls its eyes, and the view of the Oder, which truly is something special. Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, you would love the Oder! The river, or rather rivers—there seem to be dozens of them—are intense blue, and the plain they run through an intensest green.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“She was not a Christian in the accepted sense; she did not believe that God had ever worked among us as a young artisan.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End