E.M. Forster

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.

At night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity.

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of Man.

Yes, oh dear, yes, the novel tells a story.

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

Unless we remember we cannot understand.

Spoon-feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.

The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken.

I suggest that 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 gone ourselves.

I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.