What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.
E. M. FORSTERWhat is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.
E. M. FORSTERAt night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity.
E. M. FORSTEROne grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood.
E. M. FORSTERSpoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.
E. M. FORSTERIt 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. FORSTERSo I shan’t ever marry, for there aren’t such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do marry, for I shall certainly run away from him before you can say ‘Jack Robinson.
E. M. FORSTERThere are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, “I do enjoy myself”, or , “I am horrified,” we are insincere.
E. M. FORSTERInside 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. FORSTERGive, do not lend; after death who will thank you?
E. M. FORSTERScience is better than sympathy, if only it is science.
E. M. FORSTERWhen you come back you will not be you. And I may not be I.
E. M. FORSTERAdventures do occur, but not punctually.
E. M. FORSTERLife never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate.
E. M. FORSTERIt was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and, close below, Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road.
E. M. FORSTERFaith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch, which ought to be applied as sparingly as possible. I dislike the stuff. I do not believe in it, for its own sake, at all… My lawgivers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul.
E. M. FORSTERI have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I’d like to be.
E. M. FORSTER