E. M. Forster Quotes - Page 5

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Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time - beautiful?

E. M. Forster

Beautiful, People, Room With A View

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.358, Delphi Classics

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At night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity.

E. M. Forster

Book, Night, Fire

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People have their own deaths as well as their own lives, and even if there is nothing beyond death, we shall differ in our nothingness.

E. M. Forster

People, Howards End, Wells

E.M. Forster (2015). “Howard's End”, p.284, Xist Publishing

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A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.

E. M. Forster

Poetry, Together, Literature

Two Cheers for Democracy "Anonymity: An Enquiry" (1951)

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But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.

E. M. Forster

Mean, Humanity, Progress

E. M. Forster (2015). “The Machine Stops”, p.23, Simon and Schuster

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Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful.

E. M. Forster

Men, Proud, Truthful

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.212, RosettaBooks

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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.

E. M. Forster

Pain, Book, Interesting

'A Passage to India' (1924) ch. 14

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I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The more people one knows, the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for a place.

E. M. Forster

Believe, Caring, People

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.624, Delphi Classics

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It is impossible to foretell the future with any degree of accuracy, that it is impossible to rehearse life. A fault in the scenery, a face in the audience, an interruption of the audience on to the stage, and all our carefully planned gesture mean nothing, or mean too much.

E. M. Forster

Mean, Degrees, Gestures

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Art for art's sake? I should think so, and more so than ever at the present time. It is the one orderly product which our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths, it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden. It is the best evidence we can have of our dignity.

E. M. Forster

Art, Thinking, Echoes

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The work of art assumes the existence of the perfect spectator, and is indifferent to the fact that no such person exists.

E. M. Forster

Art, Perfect, Facts

E.M. Forster (1951). “Two Cheers for Democracy”

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Liking one person is an extra reason for liking another.

E. M. Forster

Liking Someone, Literature, Reason

E.M. Forster (2016). “A Room With a View (Diversion Classics)”, p.83, Diversion Books

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The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal.

E. M. Forster

People, Society, Literature

E.M. Forster (1951). “Two Cheers for Democracy”

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Like all her friends, I miss her greatly...But...I am sure there is no case for lamentation...Virginia Woolf got through an immense amount of work, she gave acute pleasure in new ways, she pushed the light of the English language a little further against darkness. Those are facts.

E. M. Forster

Virginia, Light, Missing

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She must be assured that it is not a criminal offense to love at first sight.

E. M. Forster

Sight, Criminals, Firsts

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Expansion, that is the idea the novelist must cling to, not completion, not rounding off, but opening out.

E. M. Forster

Writing, Ideas, Novelists

E M Forster (2016). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.143, Hachette UK

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It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and, close below, Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road.

E. M. Forster

Beautiful, Sports, Eye

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.361, Delphi Classics

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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

Blessed, Past, Long

"Maurice". Book by E. M. Forster, part two, 1971.

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School was the unhappiest time of my life and the worst trick it ever played on me was to pretend that it was the world in miniature. For it hindered me from discovering how lovely and delightful and kind the world can be, and how much of it is intelligible.

E. M. Forster

School, Lovely, World

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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

Falling In Love, Writing, Men

"To a Happier Year" by Peter Fulham, www.newyorker.com. June 26, 2013.

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So, two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism.

E. M. Forster

Cheer, Democracies Have, Two

Two Cheers for Democracy "What I Believe" (1951)

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She had been so wicked that in all her life she had done only one good deed-given an onion to a beggar. So she went to hell. As she lay in torment she saw the onion, lowered down from heaven by an angel. She caught hold of it. He began to pull her up. The other damned saw what was happening and caught hold of it too. She was indignant and cried, "Let go-it's my onion," and as soon as she said, "my onion," the stalk broke and she fell back into the flames.

E. M. Forster

Letting Go, Angel, Flames

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For it is a serious thing to have been watched. We all radiate something curiously intimate when we believe ourselves to be alone.

E. M. Forster

Believe, Serious Things, Intimate

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.95, Delphi Classics

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It was not that ladies were inferior to men; it was that they were different. Their mission was to inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves. Indirectly, by means of tact and a spotless name, a lady could accomplish much. But if she rushed into the fray herself she would be first censured, then despised, and finally ignored.

E. M. Forster

Mean, Men, Names

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.381, Delphi Classics

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Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence.

E. M. Forster

Book, Interesting, Literature

'A Passage to India' (1924) ch. 14

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Born: January 1, 1879
Died: June 7, 1970
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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