E. M. Forster Quotes

The final test for a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, and of anything else which we cannot define.
E. M. Forster

Friends, Cannot, Else

The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.
E. M. Forster

Men, Experience, Through

The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then queen died of grief is a plot.
E. M. Forster

Story, King, Grief

The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink.
E. M. Forster

Life, Public, Morality

The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.
E. M. Forster

Down, Path, Books

The sort of poetry I seek resides in objects man can't touch.
E. M. Forster

Poetry, Touch, Seek

The work of art assumes the existence of the perfect spectator, and is indifferent to the fact that no such person exists.
E. M. Forster

Work, Art, Person

There is something majestic in the bad taste of Italy.
E. M. Forster

Bad, Taste, Italy

There lies at the back of every creed something terrible and hard for which the worshipper may one day be required to suffer.
E. M. Forster

Hard, May, Lies

Those who prepared for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.
E. M. Forster

Very notable was his distinction between coarseness and vulgarity, coarseness, revealing something; vulgarity, concealing something.
E. M. Forster

Between, Vulgarity, Revealing

We are all like Scheherazade's husband, in that we want to know what happens next.
E. M. Forster

Husband, Next, Happens

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

Poor, Concerned, Poet

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

Art, Why, Opinion

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Biography

Nationality: English

Born: January 1, 1879

Died: June 7, 1970

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Cite this Page: Citation

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