Sometimes I think too much fuss is made about marriage. Century after century of carnal embracement and we’re still no nearer to understanding one another.
E. M. FORSTERBut 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.
More E. M. Forster Quotes
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Life is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish t’other from which . . .
E. M. FORSTER -
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.
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The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.
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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.
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The final test for a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, and of anything else which we cannot define.
E. M. FORSTER -
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.
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Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.
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She stopped and leant her elbows against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at times a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship.
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It is so difficult – at least, I find it difficult – to understand people who speak the truth.
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To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way.
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Only a writer who has the sense of evil can make goodness readable.
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The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.
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You confuse what’s important with what’s impressive.
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I believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals.
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But the body is deeper than the soul and its secrets inscrutable.
E. M. FORSTER