E. M. Forster quotes

It is so difficult—at least, I find it difficult—to understand people who speak the truth.

— Spoken by a character · I. The Bertolini

Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome “nerves” or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire.

The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected.

“I have a view, I have a view.”

— Spoken by a character · I. The Bertolini

No, he is not tactful; yet, have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time—beautiful?

— Spoken by a character · I. The Bertolini

“We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm—yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.”

— Spoken by a character · XV. The Disaster Within

Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature. Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way.

Let yourself go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them.

— Spoken by a character · II. In Santa Croce with No Baedeker

“One doesn’t come to Italy for niceness,” was the retort; “one comes for life. Buon giorno! Buon giorno!”

— Spoken by a character · II. In Santa Croce with No Baedeker

Make him realize that by the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes—a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.

— Spoken by a character · II. In Santa Croce with No Baedeker

Adventures do occur, but not punctually.

One can tip too much as well as too little, indeed the coin that buys the exact truth has not yet been minted.

But she did not take the disappointment as seriously as Miss Quested, for the reason that she was forty years older, and had learnt that Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate.

“Why can’t we be friends now?”

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XXXVII

I believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XI

I’d far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XI

There are different ways of evil and I prefer mine to yours.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XXII

It 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.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter IV

It was unbearable, and he thought again, “How unhappy I am!” and became happier.

“Man can learn everything if he will but try.”

— Spoken by a character · Chapter VIII

“Death destroys a man: the idea of Death saves him.”

— Spoken by a character · Chapter 27

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.

They had nothing in common but the English language, and tried by its help to express what neither of them understood.

Her idea of politics—“I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars.”

To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it.

I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it--and I’m sure I can’t tell you whether the fate’s good or evil. I don’t die--I don’t fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it when I’m just not there.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter 8

For the barrier of language is sometimes a blessed barrier, which only lets pass what is good. Or--to put the thing less cynically--we may be better in new clean words, which have never been tainted by our pettiness or vice.