E. M. Forster Quotes - Page 13

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• A sentence begins quite simply, then it undulates and expands, parentheses intervene like quick-set hedges, the flowers of comparison bloom, and three fields off, like a wounded partridge, crouches the principal verb, making one wonder as one picks it up, poor little thing, whether after all it was worth such a tramp, so many guns, and such expensive dogs, and what, after all, is its relation to the main subject, potted so gaily half a page back, and proving finally to have been in the accusative case.

  E. M. Forster

  Dog, Flower, Gun

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• Pity wraps the student of the past in an ambrosial cloud, and washes his limbs with eternal youth.

  E. M. Forster

  Past, Clouds, Students

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• Sex begins before adolescence, and survives sterility; it is indeed coeval with our lives, although at the mating age its effects are more obvious to Society.

  E. M. Forster

  Sex, Age, Mating

  E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.78, RosettaBooks

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• It is the starved imagination, not the well nourished, that is afraid.

  E. M. Forster

  Imagination, Wells

  E. M. Forster (2012). “Howards End”, p.144, Courier Corporation

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• A critic has no right to the narrowness which is the frequent prerogative of the creative artist.

  E. M. Forster

  Artist, Creative, Criticism

  E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.19, RosettaBooks

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• Italy and London are the only places where I don't feel to exist on sufferance.

  E. M. Forster

  London, Feels

  E. M. Forster (2016). “A Room With A View: England Literature”, p.79, 谷月社

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• The novel is a formidable mass, and it is so amorphous - no mountain in it to climb, no Parnassus or Helicon, not even a Pisgah. It is most distinctly one of the moister areas of literature - irrigated by a hundred rills and occasionally degenerating into a swamp. I do not wonder that the poets despise it, though they sometimes find themselves in it by accident. And I am not surprised at the annoyance of the historians when by accident it finds itself among them.

  E. M. Forster

  Writing, Mountain, Literature

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• Roger Fry is painting me. It is too like me at present, but he is confident he will be able to alter that. Post-Impressionism is at present confined to my lower lip... and to my chin.

  E. M. Forster

  Portraiture, Roger, Able

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• It is now only in letters I write what I feel: not in literature any more, and I seldom say it, because I keep trying to be amusing.

  E. M. Forster

  Writing, Trying, Literature

  E. M. Forster (1987). “Commonplace Book”, p.92, Stanford University Press

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• I don't think literature will be purged until its philosophic pretentiousness is extruded, and I shant live to see that purge, nor perhaps when it has happened will anything survive.

  E. M. Forster

  Thinking, Literature, Philosophic

  E. M. Forster (1987). “Commonplace Book”, p.46, Stanford University Press

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• Democracy is not a Beloved Republic really, and never will be. But it is less hateful than other contemporary forms of government, and to that extent deserves our support.

  E. M. Forster

  Government, Support, Democracy

  E.M. Forster (1951). “Two Cheers for Democracy”

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• [...] it is right to be kind and even sacrifice ourselves to people who need kindness and lie in our way - otherwise, besides failing to help them, we run into the aridity of self-development. To seek for recipients of one's goodness, to play the Potted Jesus leads to the contray the Christian danger.

  E. M. Forster

  Christian, Running, Jesus

  E. M. Forster (1987). “Commonplace Book”, p.243, Stanford University Press

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• There's nothing like a debate to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when I was a youngster. It would have helped me no end.

  E. M. Forster

  Wish, Gone, Debate

  E.M. Forster (2015). “Howard's End”, p.119, Xist Publishing

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• Pathos, piety, courage, they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.

  E. M. Forster

  Filth, Pathos, Piety

  'A Passage to India' (1924) ch. 14

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• Self-pity? I see no moral objections to it, the smell drives people away, but that's a practical objection, and occasionally an advantage.

  E. M. Forster

  Self, Smell, People

  "Commonplace Book". Book by E. M. Forster, 1985.

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• The book [ A Passage to India ] shows signs of fatigue and disillusionment; but it has chapters of clear and triumphant beauty, and above all it makes us wonder, what will he write next?

  E. M. Forster

  Book, Writing, India

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• A mirror does not develop because an historical pageant passes in front of it. It only develops when it gets a fresh coat of quicksilver in other words, when it acquires new sensitiveness; and the novel's success lies in its own sensitiveness, not in the success of its subject matter.

  E. M. Forster

  Lying, Mirrors, Historical

  E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.38, RosettaBooks

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• Before the civil war, Pottibakia was a normal member of the Comity of Nations. She erected tariff walls, broke treaties, persecuted minorities, obstructed at conferences unless she was convinced there was no danger of a satisfactory solution; then she strained every nerve in the cause of peace.

  E. M. Forster

  Wall, War, Nerves

  "The Life to Come (and Other Stories)". Book by E. M. Forster, 1972.

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• The story of the Fall always fascinates me as a play ground, but I cannot find any profound meaning in it, because of my 'liberal' view of human nature: I cannot believe in a state of original innocence, still less in a profound meaning in it, and I am always minimising the conception and the extent of Sin and the sinfulness of sex.

  E. M. Forster

  Sex, Believe, Fall

  Selected Letters (1983-1985): Letter 396, to Eric Fletcher, July 9, 1951.

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• The novelist, unlike many of his colleagues, makes up a number of word-masses roughly describing himself (roughly: niceties shallcome later), gives them names and sex, assigns them plausible gestures, and causes them to speak by the use of inverted commas, and perhaps to behave consistently.

  E. M. Forster

  Sex, Character, Names

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• How few writers can prostitute all their powers!

  E. M. Forster

  Power

  1936 Abinger Harvest,'Ronald Firbank'.

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• But why I cry out against Rubens is because he painted undressed people instead of naked ones.

  E. M. Forster

  Art, People, Naked

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• There are occasions when I would rather feel like a fly than a spider.

  E. M. Forster

  Feelings, Spiders, Feels

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• One's favorite book is as elusive as one's favorite pudding.

  E. M. Forster

  Book, Taste, Pudding

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• Without form, the sensitiveness vanishes.

  E. M. Forster

  Form, Values

  E.M. Forster (1951). “Two Cheers for Democracy”

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