It makes a difference doesn’t it, whether we fully fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?
E. M. FORSTERAt night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity.
More E. M. Forster Quotes
-
-
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.
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 -
There are moments when the inner life actually ‘pays,’ when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use.
E. M. FORSTER -
But it struck him that people are not really dead until they are felt to be dead. As long as there is some misunderstanding about them, they possess a sort of immortality.
E. M. FORSTER -
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 -
Adventures do occur, but not punctually.
E. M. FORSTER -
Aziz winked at him slowly and said: “…There are many ways of being a man; mine is to express what is deepest in my heart.
E. M. FORSTER -
Books have to be read it is the only way of discovering what they contain.
E. M. FORSTER -
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.
E. M. FORSTER -
Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.
E. M. FORSTER -
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 -
Life is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish t’other from which . . .
E. M. FORSTER -
We move between two darknesses.
E. M. FORSTER -
The sort of poetry I seek only resides in objects Man can’t touch – like England ‘s grass network of lanes 100 years ago, but today he can destroy them and only Lord Farrer keeps him from doing it.
E. M. FORSTER -
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






