One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.
E. M. FORSTEROne always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.
E. M. FORSTEROne has two duties – to be worried and not to be worried.
E. M. FORSTERDeath destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.
E. M. FORSTERThe four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.
E. M. FORSTERThe historian records, but the novelist creates.
E. M. FORSTERI believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals.
E. M. FORSTERThe armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from others, but from his own soul.
E. M. FORSTERIt 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. FORSTERWe cast a shadow on something wherever we stand.
E. M. FORSTERIt is so difficult – at least, I find it difficult – to understand people who speak the truth.
E. M. FORSTERWe cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm – yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.
E. M. FORSTERIt’s not what people do to you, but what they mean, that hurts.
E. M. FORSTERI 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. FORSTERDon’t begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed.
E. M. FORSTERLife never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate.
E. M. FORSTERShe 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.
E. M. FORSTER