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a collection of film, literature, and poetry — predominantly of the queer variety.

( alex / isherwood and auden devotee )

aseaofquotes:

George Orwell, 1984

aseaofquotes:

Sarah Waters, Fingersmith

aseaofquotes:

— Oscar Wilde

"INTERVIEWER
Do all your characters have real-life models?

FORSTER
In no book have I got down more than the people I like, the person I think I am, and the people who irritate me. This puts me among the large body of authors who are not really novelists and have to get on as best they can with these three categories. We have not the power of observing the variety of life and describing it dispassionately. There are a few who have done this. Tolstoy was one, wasn’t he?

INTERVIEWER
Can you say anything about the process of turning a real person into a fictional one?

FORSTER
A useful trick is to look back upon such a person with half-closed eyes, fully describing certain characteristics. I am left with about two-thirds of a human being and can get to work. A likeness isn’t aimed at, and couldn’t be obtained, because a man’s only himself amid the particular circumstances of his life and not amid other circumstances."

colourcharcoal:

“A slow nature such as Maurice’s appears insensitive, for it needs time even to feel. Its instinct is to assume that nothing either for good or evil has happened, and to resist the invader. Once gripped, it feels acutely, and its sensations in love are particularly profound. Given time, it can know and impart ecstasy; given time, it can sink to the heart of Hell.” — Maurice by E.M. Forster