E. M. Forster

“I'm a holy man minus the holiness.”

“For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better.”

“The sadness of the incomplete, the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art.”

“Paganism is infectious, more infectious than diphtheria or piety.”

“I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.”

“Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvellous than the land.”

“Liking one person is an extra reason for liking another.”

“Only a struggle twists sentimentality and lust together into love.”

“If there is on earth a house with many mansions, it is the house of words.”

“But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else.”

“Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think, creation's.”

“I have no mystic faith in the people. I have in the individual.”

“The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then queen died of grief is a plot.”

“The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink.”

“Most quarrels are inevitable at the time; incredible afterwards.”

“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.”

“The sort of poetry I seek resides in objects man can't touch.”

“Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.”

“Be soft, even if you stand to get squashed.”

“We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet.”