E M Forster Quotes

It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal. ~ E. M. Forster

You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. ~ E. M. Forster

him who standeth, take heed lest he fall. ~ 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

You do admit that, if wealth was divided up equally, in a few years there would be rich and poor again just the same. The hard-working man would come to the top, the wastrel sink to the bottom.
- Every one admits that.
- Your Socialists don't.
- My Socialists do. Yours mayn't; but I strongly suspect yours of being not Socialists, but ninepins, which you have constructed for your own amusement. I can't imagine any living creature who would bowl over quite so easily. ~ E. M. Forster

Chess is a forcing house where the fruits of character can ripen more fully than in life ~ E. M. Forster

THE SIGNORA HAD NO business to do it," said Miss Bartlett, "no business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a court-yard, and a long way apart. Oh, Lucy! ~ E. M. Forster

Most quarrels are inevitable at the time; incredible afterwards. ~ E. M. Forster

He had awoken too late for happiness, but not for strength, and could feel an austere joy, as of a warrior who is homeless but stands fully armed. ~ E. M. Forster

London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night. Electric lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas-lamps in the side streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. ~ E. M. Forster

Perhaps it was Helen's way of falling in love--a curious way to Margaret, whose agony and whose contempt of Henry were yet imprinted with his image. Helen forgot people. They were husks that had enclosed her emotion. ~ E. M. Forster

He had said it bravely, and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things. ~ E.M. Forster

Mr Abrahams was a preparatory schoolmaster of the old-fashioned sort. He cared neither for work nor games, but fed his boys well and saw that they did not misbehave. The rest he left to the parents, and did not speculate how much the parents were leaving to him. Amid mutual compliments the boys passed out into a public school, healthy but backward, to receive upon undefended flesh the first blows of the world. ~ E. M. Forster

Then she turned westward, to gaze at the swirling gold. Just where the river rounded the hill the sun caught it. Fairyland must lie above the bend, and its precious liquid was pouring towards them past Charles's bathing shed. ~ E.M. Forster

Let us think of people as starting life with an experience they forget and ending it with one which they anticipate but cannot understand. ~ E. M. Forster

She watched the moon, whose radiance stained with primrose the purple of the surrounding sky. In England the moon had seemed dead and alien; here she was caught in the shawl of night together with earth and all the other stars. ~ E. M. Forster

Independence!" was a useful cry, and always saying we have not got it. ~ E. M. Forster

A rebel she was, but not of the kind he understood - a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling-room, but equality beside the man she loved. ~ E. M. Forster

There stood a young man who had the figure of a Greek athlete and the face of an English one...Just where he began to be beautiful the clothes started. ~ E. M. Forster

In the novel we can know people perfectly, and, apart from the general pleasure of reading, we can find here a compensation for their dimness in life. ~ E. M. Forster

Discussion keeps a house alive. It cannot stand by bricks and mortar alone. ~ E. M. Forster

Boys are marvellous creatures. Perhaps they will sink below the brutes; perhaps they will attain to a woman's tenderness. ~ E. M. Forster

It never bored them to hear words, words; they breathed them with the cool night air, never stopping to analyse; the name of the poet, Hafiz, Hali, Iqbal, was sufficient guarantee. India - a hundred Indias - whispered outside beneath the indifferent moon, but for the time India seemed one and their own, and they regained their departed greatness by hearing its departure lamented, they felt young again because reminded that youth must fly. ~ E. M. Forster

If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting
both for us and for her. ~ E. M. Forster

Every little trifle for some reason does seem incalculably important today and when you say of a thing that "nothing hangs on it" it sounds like blasphemy. There's never any knowing - how am I to put it? - which of our actions, which of our idlenesses won't have things hanging on it forever. ~ E. M. Forster

Nonsense and beauty have close connections. ~ E. M. Forster

Every life ought to contain both a turn and a return. ~ E. M. Forster

One has two duties - to be worried and not to be worried. ~ E. M. Forster

The world is certainly full of beautiful things, if only I could come across them. ~ E. M. Forster

At the side of the everlasting why, is a yes, and a yes, and a yes. ~ E. M. Forster

... I since cricket match do long to talk with one of my arms around you, then place both arms round you and share with you, the above now seems sweeter to me than words can say. ~ E. M. Forster

To Margaret - I hope that it will not set the reader against her - the station of King's Cross had always suggested Infinity. Its very situation - withdrawn a little behind the facile splendours of St. Pancras - implied a comment on the materialism of life. Those two great arches, colourless, indifferent, shouldering between them an unlovely clock, were fit portals for some eternal adventure, whose issue might be prosperous, but would certainly not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity. ~ E. M. Forster

For that little incident had impressed the three women more than might be supposed. It remained as a goblin footfall, as a hint that all is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and that beneath these superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy, who has recovered his umbrella indeed, but who has left no address behind him, and no name. ~ E. M. Forster

Man has to pick up the use of his functions as he goes along- especially the function of Love. ~ E. M. Forster

Perhaps anything that he did would have pleased Lucy, but his awkwardness went straight to her heart. ~ E. M. Forster

How can it be expressed in anything but itself? ~ E. M. Forster

What do you think of the Wilcoxes? Are they our sort? Are they likely people? Could they appreciate Helen, who is to my mind a very special sort of person? Do they care about Literature and Art? That is most important when you come to think of it. Literature and Art. Most important. How ~ E. M. Forster

I don't think I understand people very well. I only know whether I like or dislike them. ~ E.M. Forster

I cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them. ~ E. M. Forster

This desire to govern a woman
it lies very deep, and men and women must fight it together ... But I do love you surely in a better way then he does." He thought. "Yes
really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms. ~ E. M. Forster

we may say that History develops, Art stands still ~ 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

If there is on earth a house with many mansions, it is the house of words. ~ E. M. Forster

Intuition attracts those who wish to be spiritual without any bother, because it promises a heaven where the intuitions of others can be ignored. ~ E. M. Forster

They described the strange feeling of peace that came over them when they handled the Book of the Machine, the pleasure that it was to repeat certain numerals out of it, however little meaning those numerals conveyed to the outward ear, the ecstasy of touching a button, however unimportant, or of ringing an electric bell, however superfluously. ~ E.M. Forster

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

It is the function of the novelist to reveal the hidden life at its source: to tell us more about Queen Victoria than could be known, and thus to produce a character who is not the Queen Victoria of history. ~ E. M. Forster

Nature pulls one way and human nature another. ~ E. M. Forster

She strove in vain against the echoing walls of their civility. ~ E. M. Forster

No one is more triumphant than the man who chooses a worthy subject and masters all its facts. ~ E. M. Forster

Rudeness affected Margaret like a bitter taste in the mouth. It poisoned life. At times it is necessary, but woe to those who employ it without due need. ~ E.M. Forster

The book [ A Passage to India ] shows signs of fatigue and disillusionment; but it has chapters of clear and triumphant beauty, and above all it makes us wonder, what will he write next? ~ E. M. Forster

If you introduce the human figure you at once arouse either disgust or desire. ~ E. M. Forster

She had a strong, if erroneous, conviction of her own futility, and wished she had never come out of her backwater, where nothing happened except art and literature, and where no one ever got married or succeeded in remaining engaged. ~ E.M. Forster

The crime of suicide lies rather in its disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave behind. ~ E. M. Forster

There is something majestic in the bad taste of Italy. ~ E. M. Forster

And if insight were sufficient, if the inner life were the whole of life, their happiness has been assured. ~ E. M. Forster

In time, Mr Hall, one gets to recognize that sneer, that hardness, for fornication extends far beyond the actual deed. Were it a deed only, I for one would not hold it anathema. But when the nations went a whoring they invariably ended by denying God, I think, and until all sexual irregularities and not some of them are penal the Church will never reconquer England. ~ E. M. Forster

The business man who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and on that, to hit the truth. "Yes, I see, dear; it's about halfway between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not halfway between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to ensure sterility ~ E. M. Forster

Nothing ever happens to me, " she reflected..... An older person at such an hour and in such a place might think that sufficient was happening to him, and rest content. Lucy desired more. ~ E. M. Forster

Why can't we be friends now?" said the other, holding him affectionately. "It's what I want. It's what you want." But the horses didn't want it - they swerved apart: the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temple, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they emerged from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices "No, not yet," and the sky said "No, not there. ~ E. M. Forster

I suppose I shall have to live now ~ E. M. Forster

Though life is very glorious, it is difficult. ~ E. M. Forster

It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted. ~ E. M. Forster

The stories of Harmonius and Aristogeiton, of Phaedrus of the Theban Band were well enough for those whose hearts were empty, but no substitute for life. That Clive should occasionally prefer them puzzled him. ~ E. M. Forster

A novel must give a sense of permanence as well as a sense of life. ~ E. M. Forster

You are not to say 'stink,' " interrupted Helen; "at least, you may say it, but you must pretend you are being funny while you say it. ~ E. M. Forster

He seems to see good in every one. No one would take him for a clergyman. ~ E. M. Forster

I am so used to seeing the sort of play which deals with one man and two women. They do not leave me with the feeling I have made a full theatrical meal they do not give me the experience of the multiplicity of life. ~ E. M. Forster

Man's feet are the measure for distance, his hands are the measure for ownership, his body is the measure for all that is lovable and desirable and strong. Then I went further: it was then that I called to you for the first time, and you would not come. ~ E. M. Forster

an Italian can never be ignored, least of all when he has a grievance. ~ E. M. Forster

But a lover is dogmatic. To him the world shall be beautiful and pure. When it is not, he ignores it. ~ E. M. Forster

So abased, so monotonous is everything that meets the eye, that when the Ganges comes down it might be expected to wash the excrescence back into the soil. Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting, but the general outline of the town persists, welling here, shrinking there, like some low but indestructible form of life. ~ E. M. Forster

But in the south-west there had appeared a dull haze of yellow, which might mean better weather if it did not mean worse. She ~ E. M. Forster

Do you suppose there's any difference between spring in nature and spring in man? But there we go, praising the one and condemning the other as improper, ashamed that the same laws work eternally through both. ~ E. M. Forster

Yet complicated people were getting wet - not only the shepherds. For instance, the piano-tuner was sopping. So was the vicar's wife. So were the lieutenant and the peevish damsels in his Battlesden car. Gallantry, charity, and art pursued their various missions, perspiring and muddy, while out on the slopes beyond them stood the eternal man and the eternal dog, guarding eternal sheep until the world is vegetarian. ~ E. M. Forster

With the first jolt he was in daylight; they had left the gateways of King's Cross, and were under blue sky. Tunnels followed, and after each the sky grew bluer, and from the embankment at Finsbury Park he had his first sight of the sun. It rolled along behind the eastern smokes - a wheel, whose fellow was the descending moon - and as yet it seemed the servant of the blue sky, not its lord. He dozed again. Over Tewin Water it was day. To the left fell the shadow of the embankment and its arches; to the right Leonard saw up into the Tewin Woods and towards the church, with its wild legend of immortality. Six forest trees - that is a fact - grow out of one of the graves in Tewin churchyard. The grave's occupant - that is the legend - is an atheist, who declared that if God existed, six forest trees would grow out of her grave. These things in Hertfordshire; and farther afield lay the house of a hermit - Mrs. Wilcox had known him - who barred himself up, and wrote prophecies, and gave all he had to the poor. While, powdered in between, were the villas of business men, who saw life more steadily, though with the steadiness of the half-closed eye. Over all the sun was streaming, to all the birds were singing, to all the primroses were yellow, and the speedwell blue, and the country, however they interpreted her, was uttering her cry of "now. " She did not free Leonard yet, and the knife plunged deeper into his heart as the train drew up at Hilton. But remorse had b ~ E.M. Forster

I do like Christmas on the whole ... In its clumsy way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But it is clumsier every year. ~ E. M. Forster

I think you're beautiful, the only beautiful person I've ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you. ~ E. M. Forster

Conse­quently the Wolfenden recommendations will be indefinitely rejected, police prosecutions will continue and Clive on the bench will continue to sentence Alec in the dock. Maurice may get off. ~ E.M. Forster

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

Miss Abbott, don't worry over me. Some people are born not to do things. I'm one of them. ~ E. M. Forster

Without form, the sensitiveness vanishes. ~ 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

Some reviews give pain. This is regrettable, but no author has the right to whine. He was not obliged to be an author. He invited publicity, and he must take the publicity that comes along. ~ E. M. Forster

Despite my admiration for scientific knowledge, I am not an adherent of scientism. For scientism dogmatically asserts the authority of scientific knowledge; whereas I do not believe in any authority and have always resisted dogmatism; and I continue to resist it, especially in science. I am opposed to the thesis that the scientist must believe in his theory. As far as I am concerned "I do not believe in belief," as E. M. Forster says; and I especially do not believe in belief in science. I believe at most that belief has a place in ethics, and even here only in a few instances. I believe, for example, that objective truth is a value - that is, an ethical value, perhaps the greatest value there is - and that cruelty is the greatest evil. ~ Karl R. Popper

I believe in aristocracy. . . - if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. ~ E. M. Forster

Only people who have been allowed to practise freedom can have the grown-up look in their eyes. ~ E. M. Forster

A mirror does not develop because an historical pageant passes in front of it. It only develops when it gets a fresh coat of quicksilver in other words, when it acquires new sensitiveness; and the novel's success lies in its own sensitiveness, not in the success of its subject matter. ~ E. M. Forster

Do they care about Literature and Art? That is the most important when you come to think of it. Literature and Art. Most important. ~ 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

Ideas are fatal to caste. ~ E. M. Forster

You can when you mean to,' said Maurice gently. 'You can do anything once you know what it is. ~ E. M. Forster

-Bad dreams?
-Just dreams. ~ E. M. Forster

I have no mystic faith in the people. I have in the individual. ~ E. M. Forster

Our final experience, like our first, is conjectural. We move between two darkness's. ~ E. M. Forster

There is a scene in it. The hero and heroine make love. Do you know about that? ~ E. M. Forster

All men are equal - all men, that is, who possess umbrellas. ~ E. M. Forster

Books have to be read it is the only way of discovering what they contain. ~ E. M. Forster

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