E. M. Forster Quotes - Page 14

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• Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch.

  E. M. Forster

  Faith, Mind, Mental Health

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

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• The sadness of the incomplete, the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art.

  E. M. Forster

  Art, Sadness, Should

  E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.446, Delphi Classics

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• Letters have to pass two tests before they can be classed as good: they must express the personality both of the writer and of the recipient.

  E. M. Forster

  Two, Personality, Letters

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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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• Intuition attracts those who wish to be spiritual without any bother, because it promises a heaven where the intuitions of others can be ignored.

  E. M. Forster

  Spiritual, Heaven, Promise

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• The woman who can't influence her husband to vote the way she wants ought to be ashamed of herself.

  E. M. Forster

  Husband, Literature, Want

  E.M. Forster (2015). “Howard's End”, p.206, Xist Publishing

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• All that is observable in a man-that is to say his actions and such of his spiritual existence as can be deduced from his actions-falls into the domain of history.

  E. M. Forster

  Spiritual, Fall, Men

  E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.73, RosettaBooks

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• It is the function of the novelist to reveal the hidden life at its source: to tell us more about Queen Victoria than could be known, and thus to produce a character who is not the Queen Victoria of history.

  E. M. Forster

  Queens, Character, Novelists

  E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.72, RosettaBooks

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• A novel is based on evidence, + or -x, the unknown quantity being the temperament of the novelist, and the unknown quantity always modifies the effect of the evidence, and sometimes transforms it entirely.

  E. M. Forster

  Novelists, Fiction, Sometimes

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• Riposte of "that old lady in the anecdote who was accused by her nieces of being illogical," Logic! Good gracious! What rubbish! How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?

  E. M. Forster

  Niece, Thinking, Anecdotes

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• We are all like Scheherazade's husband, in that we want to know what happens next.

  E. M. Forster

  Husband, Literature, Want

  E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.47, RosettaBooks

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• It is pleasant to be transferred from an office where one is afraid of a sergeant-major into an office where one can intimidate generals, and perhaps this is why history is so attractive to the more timid among us. We can recover self-confidence by snubbing the dead.

  E. M. Forster

  Self Confidence, History, Office

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• There is much good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We are children, playing or quarrelling on the line.

  E. M. Forster

  Children, Good Luck, Literature

  'The Longest Journey' (1907) ch. 12

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• Very notable was his distinction between coarseness and vulgarity, coarseness, revealing something; vulgarity, concealing something.

  E. M. Forster

  Vulgarity Is, Revealing Something, Literature

  'The Longest Journey' (1907) ch. 26

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• This element of surprise or mystery the detective element as it is sometimes rather emptily called is of great importance in a plot.

  E. M. Forster

  Plot, Elements, Detectives

  E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.132, RosettaBooks

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• Are not beauty and delicacy the same?

  E. M. Forster

  Delicacy, Room With A View

  Gabrielle Vigot, Monica Corwin, Pan Zador, Coco Rousseau, Alexandre Dumas (2015). “Literary Love: 5 Wild and Wanton Classics”, p.1082, Simon and Schuster

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• Only a struggle twists sentimentality and lust together into love.

  E. M. Forster

  Struggle, Lust, Together

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• Hardship is vanishing, but so is style, and the two are more closely connected than the present generation supposes.

  E. M. Forster

  Two, Style, Generations

  "Two Cheers for Democracy". Book by E. M. Forster, 1951.

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• Truth is a flower in whose neighbourhood others must wither.

  E. M. Forster

  Flower, Truth Is, Neighbourhoods

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• I have said that each aspect of the novel demands a different quality of the reader. Well, the prophetic aspect demands two qualities: humility and the suspension of the sense of humour.

  E. M. Forster

  Humility, Two, Empathy

  E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.183, RosettaBooks

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• Our easiest approach to a definition of any aspect of fiction is always by considering the sort of demand it makes on the reader. Curiosity for the story, human feelings and a sense of value for the characters, intelligence and memory for the plot. What does fantasy ask of us? It asks us to pay something extra.

  E. M. Forster

  Memories, Character, Empathy

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• I do not believe in Belief.

  E. M. Forster

  Believe, Belief

  1951 Two Cheers for Democracy,'What I Believe'.

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• 'Oh, poor, poor fellow!' said Mrs. Elliot with a remorse that was sincere, though her congratulations would not have been.

  E. M. Forster

  Sympathy, Congratulations, Sincere

  E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.278, Delphi Classics

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• He stretched out his hands as he sang, sadly, because all beauty is sad…The poem had done no ‘good’ to anyone, but it was a passing reminder, a breath from the divine lips of beauty, a nightingale between two worlds of dust. Less explicit than the call to Krishna, it voiced our loneliness nevertheless, our isolation, our need for the Friend who never comes yet is not entirely disproved.

  E. M. Forster

  Loneliness, Dust, Hands

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• In the creative state a man is taken out of himself. He lets down as it were a bucket into his subconscious, and draws up something which is normally beyond his reach. He mixes this thing with his normal experiences and out of the mixture he makes a work of art.

  E. M. Forster

  Art, Taken, Men

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

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