She had not died there. A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too la… - E. M. Forster

Oh, Mr Hall, what an ungallant remark. Look at her lovely hair.'
'I like short hair best.'
'Why?'
'Because I can stroke it-' and he began to cry.

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.

Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talks that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, “I do enjoy myself", or , “I am horrified,” we are insincere.