22 Quotes & Sayings By E M Forster

While serving in the Royal Navy, E. M. Forster wrote his first novel, A Room with a View, later published in 1907. Forster's work is often described as "lyrical," for its focus on the inner thoughts of the characters, which are expressed through direct speech or through interior monologues Read more

The novel has been considered "poetic" owing to its detailed descriptive passages and its themes of love, loss, and social class.

1
Chicago - a facade of skyscrapers facing a lake and behind the facade every type of dubiousness. E. M. Forster
2
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
3
Faith to my mind is a stiffening process a sort of mental starch. E. M. Forster
4
An efficiency-regime cannot be run without a few heroes stuck about it to carry off the dullness - much as plums have to be put into a bad pudding to make it palatable. E. M. Forster
5
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. E. M. Forster
6
Failure and success seem to have been allotted to men by their stars. But they retain the power of wriggling of fighting with their star or against it and in the whole universe the only really interesting movement is this wriggle. E. M. Forster
7
Our life on earth is and ought to be material and carnal. But we have not yet learned to manage our materialism and carnality properly they are still entangled with the desire for ownership. E. M. Forster
8
How can I know what I think till I see what I say? E. M. Forster
9
Love is always being given where it is not required. E. M. Forster
10
What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives? E. M. Forster
11
Charm, in most men and nearly all women, is a decoration. E. M. Forster
12
History develops, art stands still. E. M. Forster
13
Either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life. E. M. Forster
14
Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch. E. M. Forster
15
One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life. E. M. Forster
16
Nonsense and beauty have close connections. E. M. Forster
17
The sadness of the incomplete, the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art. E. M. Forster
18
To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art men can only make us feel small in the wrong way. E. M. Forster
19
A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself. E. M. Forster
20
The sort of poetry I seek resides in objects man can't touch. E. M. Forster
21
We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship. E. M. Forster