Marriage Quote by E. M. Forster

Curiosity, Forster implies, is less a noble thirst for knowledge than a kind of hostage situation we willingly enter. By casting "we" as Scheherazade's husband, he yokes the modern reader to a figure who is not merely impatient for plot but addicted to suspense as a means of staying alive - and, crucially, as a way of staying in control. In One Thousand and One Nights, the king's desire to hear the end of the story postpones an act of violence. Narrative becomes a lever: keep him wanting, keep the blade lifted.

Forster's intent is slyly diagnostic. He isn't praising the reader's imagination; he's exposing the bargain at the heart of storytelling. The appetite for "what happens next" is a compulsion that writers can exploit, an engine that can drag us through morally messy terrain because we can't bear unfinishedness. It's also a critique of a certain masculine entitlement: the husband-king believes he is the decider, the consumer, the judge. Yet the subtext flips the power dynamic. Scheherazade, armed with structure and timing, governs his attention and, over time, his conscience.

Context matters: Forster wrote in a period anxious about what fiction should do - edify, entertain, reform. His line lands as both defense and warning. Plot is not a trivial gimmick; it's the oldest technology for directing human desire. We keep turning pages not because we're virtuous, but because we're vulnerable to delay, to cliffhangers, to the psychological itch of not knowing.