690 Quotes by E. M. Forster

Italian in the mouth of Italians is a deep-voiced stream, with unexpected cataracts and boulders to preserve it from monotony. In Mr. Eager’s mouth it resembled nothing so much as an acid whistling fountain which played ever higher and higher, and quicker and quicker, and more and more shrilly, till abruptly it was turned off with a click.

He is rather a peculiar man.” Again he hesitated, and then said gently: “I think he would not take advantage of your acceptance, nor expect you to show gratitude. He has the merit – if it is one – of saying exactly what he means. He has rooms he does not value, and he thinks you would value them. He no more thought of putting you under an obligation than he thought of being polite. It is so difficult – at least, I find it difficult – to understand people who speak the truth.

Maurice hated cricket. It demanded a snickety neatness he could not supply.

This desire to govern a woman – it lies very deep, and men and women must fight it together... But I do love you surely in a better way than he does.” He thought. “Yes – really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms.

How wide the gulf between Henry as he was and Henry as Helen thought he ought to be! And she herself – hovering as usual between the two, now accepting men as they are, now yearning with her sister for Truth. Love and Truth – their warfare seems eternal. Perhaps the whole visible world rests on it, and if they were one, life itself, like the spirits when Prospero was reconciled to his brother, might vanish into air, into thin air.

The Arts are not drugs. They are not guaranteed to act when taken. Something as mysterious and capricious as the creative impulse has to be released before they can act.

This constant reference to genius is another characteristic of the pseudo-scholar. He loves mentioning genius, because the sound of the word exempts him from discovering its meaning.

Here had lived an elder race, to which we look back with disquietude. The country which we visit at week-ends was really a home to it, and the graver sides of life, the deaths, the partings, the yearnings for love, have their deepest expression in the heart of the fields.

Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him – that is the best account of it that has been yet given. Squalor and tragedy can beckon to all that is great in us; and strengthen the wings of love.