But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear and merge into something else. - E.M. Forster
I have almost completed a long novel, but it is unpublishable until my death and England's. - E.M. Forster
Like every true performer, she was intoxicated by the mere feel of the notes: they were fingers caressing her own; and by touch, not by sound alone, did she come to her desire. - E.M. Forster
A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to peer out. - E.M. Forster
I did not fear that I might tread upon a live rail and be killed. I feared something far more intangible-doing what was not contemplated by the Machine. Then I said to myself, Man is the measure, and I went, and after many visits I found an opening. - E.M. Forster
We may still contrive to raise three cheers for democracy, although at present she only deserves two. - E.M. Forster
Standing each by his monster, they looked at each other, and smiled - E.M. Forster
Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake. - E.M. Forster
He had a theory that musicians are incredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they want and what they are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their friends; that their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet been understood. - E.M. Forster
Nothing ever happens to me, " she reflected..... An older person at such an hour and in such a place might think that sufficient was happening to him, and rest content. Lucy desired more. - E.M. Forster
To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art. - E.M. Forster
Every little trifle, for some reason, does seem incalculably important today, and when you say of a thing that 'nothing hangs on it,' it sounds like blasphemy. There's never any knowing - (how am I to put it?) - which of our actions, which of our idlenesses won't have things hanging on it for ever. - E.M. Forster
An acquaintance had become a lover, might become a husband, but would retain all that she had noted in the acquaintance; and love must confirm an old relation rather than reveal a new one. - E.M. Forster
And if insight were sufficient, if the inner life were the whole of life, their happiness has been assured. - E.M. Forster
Beauty ought to look a little surprised: it is the emotion that best suits her face.... The beauty who does not look surprised, who accepts her position as her due—she reminds us too much of a prima donna. - E.M. Forster
The doctrine of laisser-faire will not work in the material world. - E.M. Forster
A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself. - E.M. Forster
Only a writer who has the sense of evil can make goodness readable. - E.M. Forster
We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. - E.M. Forster
The Machine stops.""What do you say?""The Machine is stopping, I know it, I know the signs."She burst into a peal of laugher. - E.M. Forster
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. - E.M. Forster
I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves. - E.M. Forster
School was the unhappiest time of my life and the worst trick it ever played on me was to pretend that it was the world in miniature. For it hindered me from discovering how lovely and delightful and kind the world can be, and how much of it is intelligible. - E.M. Forster
How do I know what I think until I see what I say? - E.M. Forster
Italy and London are the only places where I don't feel to exist on sufferance. - E.M. Forster
I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows. - E.M. Forster
The novelist defines the story with the following example: If you are told that the king died and then the queen died, that is a sequence of events. If you were told that the king died and then the queen died of grief, that is a story that he was interested. - E.M. Forster
I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. - E.M. Forster
The historian records, but the novelist creates. - E.M. Forster
Humility is a quality for which I have only a limited admiration. In many phases of life it is a great mistake and degenerates into defensiveness and hypocrisy. - E.M. Forster
Hardship is vanishing, but so is style, and the two are more closely connected than the present generation supposes. - E.M. Forster
And Englishmen like posing as gods. - E.M. Forster
The Waves is an extraordinary achievement ... It is trembling on the edge. A little less - and it would lose its poetry. A little more - and it would be over into the abyss, and be dull and arty. It is her greatest book. - E.M. Forster
We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. - E.M. Forster
Either life entails courage or it ceases to be life. - E.M. Forster
How can I tell what I think till I see what I say? - E.M. Forster
But the body is deeper than the soul and its secrets inscrutable. - E.M. Forster
A work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned. - E.M. Forster
The Machine is the friend of ideas and the enemy of superstition: the Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the Machine. - E.M. Forster
Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time - beautiful? - E.M. Forster
The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death. - E.M. Forster
Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon. - E.M. Forster
He will work off his crudities in time. I rather mistrust young men who slip into life gracefully. - E.M. Forster