E. M. Forster Quotes

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

"I taught him, 'he quavered, "to trust in love. I said:'when love comes, that is reality.' I said: 'Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand.

She stopped and leant her elbows against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at times a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship.

Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually.

It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted.

She could not explain in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.

The armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from others, but from his own soul.

When we were only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you're always protecting me... I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can't I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through you? A woman's place!

Because I say so little you think I don't feel. I care a lot.

While her lips talked culture, her heart was planning to invite him to tea

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.

The house was very quiet, and the fog — we are in November now — pressed against the windows like an excluded ghost.

I believe in aristocracy, though — if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secreat understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but power to endure, and they can take a joke.

I cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them.

Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand.