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

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

Love is always being given where it is not required.

— E. M. Forster

Nonsense and beauty have close connections.

— E. M. Forster

One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.

— E. M. Forster

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

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

— E. M. Forster

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

— E. M. Forster

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

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