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. FORSTERYou 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. FORSTERWe move between two darknesses.
E. M. FORSTERThe king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then queen died of grief is a plot.
E. M. FORSTERYou confuse what’s important with what’s impressive.
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. FORSTERDo we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
E. M. FORSTERIf I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
E. M. FORSTERThe 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. FORSTEROne must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.
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. 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. FORSTERThe historian records, but the novelist creates.
E. M. FORSTERLife is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish t’other from which . . .
E. M. FORSTEROutside the arch, always there seemed another arch. And beyond the remotest echo, a silence.
E. M. FORSTERGive, do not lend; after death who will thank you?
E. M. FORSTERSchool 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.
E. M. FORSTER