How can I know what I think till I see what I say?
E. M. FORSTERHow can I know what I think till I see what I say?
E. M. FORSTERI distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood too, and I always feel a little man’s pleasure when they come a cropper.
E. M. FORSTERThe 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. 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. FORSTER… there are shadows because there are hills.
E. M. FORSTERDeath destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.
E. M. FORSTERDon’t be mysterious; there isn’t the time.
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. FORSTERThe four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.
E. M. FORSTERIt is easy to sympathize at a distance,’ said an old gentleman with a beard. ‘I value more the kind word that is spoken close to my ear.
E. M. FORSTERA poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.
E. M. FORSTERNonsense and beauty have close connections.
E. M. FORSTERLife never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate.
E. M. FORSTERRailway termini are our gates to the glorious and the unknown
E. M. FORSTERThere’s never any great risk as long as you have money.
E. M. FORSTERWorks of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don’t believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art’s sake.
E. M. FORSTER