List of E. M. Forster Quotes

Let Her Go To Italy!" He Cried. "let Her Meddle With What She Doesn't Understand!

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.

This Element Of Surprise Or Mystery — The Detective Element As It Is Sometimes Rather Emptily Called — Is Of Great Importance In A Plot. It Occurs Through A Suspension Of The Time-sequence; A Mystery Is A Pocket In Time, And It Occurs Crudely, As In "why Did The Queen Die?" And More Subtly In Half-explained Gestures And Words, The True Meaning Of Which Only Dawns Pages Ahead. Mystery Is Essential To A Plot, And Cannot Be Appreciated Without Intelligence.

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.

She Would Only Point Out The Salvation That Was Latent In His Own Soul, And In The Soul Of Every Man. 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. Only Connect, And The Beast And The Monk, Robbed Of The Isolation That Is Life To Either, Will Die.

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.

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.

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.

Truth Is A Flower In Whose Neighbourhood Others Must Wither.

Very Notable Was His Distinction Between Coarseness And Vulgarity, Coarseness, Revealing Something; Vulgarity, Concealing Something.

Hardship Is Vanishing, But So Is Style, And The Two Are More Closely Connected Than The Present Generation Supposes.

I Do Not Believe In Belief.