E. M. Forster Quotes

291 Sourced Quotes

I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars.

E. M. Forster
Logic! Good gracious! What rubbish! How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?

E. M. Forster
I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.

E. M. Forster
Death destroys a man: the idea of Death saves him.

E. M. Forster
Then she lay on her back and gazed at the cloudless sky. Mr. Beebe, whose opinion of her rose daily, whispered to his niece that that was the proper way to behave if any little thing went wrong.

E. M. Forster
An acquaintance had become a lover, might become a husband, but would retain all that she had noted in the acquaintance; and love must confirm an old relation rather than reveal a new one.

E. M. Forster
It is not that the Englishman can't feel—it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even open his mouth too wide when he talks—his pipe might fall out if he did.

E. M. Forster
All invitations must proceed from heaven perhaps; perhaps it is futile for men to initiate their own unity, they do but widen the gulfs between them by the attempt.

E. M. Forster
Neanderthal man listened to stories, if one may judge by the shape of his skull. The primitive audience was an audience of shock-heads, gaping around the camp-fire, fatigued with contending against the mammoth or wooly-rhinoceros, and only kept awake by suspense. What would happen next? The novelist droned on, and as soon as the audience guessed what happened next, they either fell asleep or killed him.

E. M. Forster
It is easy to sympathize at a distance,' said an old gentleman with a beard. 'I value more the kind word that is spoken close to my ear.

E. M. Forster
Masood, a young lady has fallen in love with me—at least so I judge from her letters. Awkward is it not—awkward and surprising. You would be flattered and twirl your moustache, but I am merely uncomfortable. I wish she would stop, as she is very nice, and I enjoyed being friends. What an ill constructed world this is! Love is always being given where it is not required.

E. M. Forster
Railway termini. They are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return.

E. M. Forster
Our final experience, like our first, is conjectural. We move between two darknesses.

E. M. Forster
The traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of Giotto, or the corruption of the Papacy, may return remembering nothing but the blue sky and the men and women under it.

E. M. Forster
I hated the idleness, the stupidity, the respectability, the petty unselfishness.

E. M. Forster
In Europe life retreats out of the cold, and exquisite fireside myths have resulted—Balder, Persephone—but [in India] the retreat is from the source of life, the treacherous sun, and no poetry adorns it because disillusionment cannot be beautiful. Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form, and India fails to accommodate them.

E. M. Forster
You told me once that we shall be judged by our intentions, not by our accomplishments. I thought it a grand remark. But we must intend to accomplish - not sit intending on a chair.

E. M. Forster
They cared for no one, they were outside humanity, and death, had it come, would only have continued their pursuit of a retreating horizon.

E. M. Forster
Italy is such a delightful place to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite luxury of Socialism--that true Socialism which is based not on equality of income or character, but on the equality of manners. In the democracy of the caffè or the street the great question of our life has been solved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But it is accomplished at the expense of the sisterhood of women.

E. M. Forster
I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult.

E. M. Forster
I have said that each aspect of the novel demands a different quality of the reader. Well, the prophetic aspect demands two qualities: humility and the suspension of the sense of humour.

E. M. Forster
One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood.

E. M. Forster
The so called white races are really pinko-grey.

E. M. Forster
Where there is officialism every human relationship suffers.

E. M. Forster
There's nothing like a debate to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when I was a youngster. It would have helped me no end.

E. M. Forster