E. M. Forster Quotes

The observations and encounters of a solitary, taciturn man are vaguer and at the same times more intense than those of a sociable man; his thoughts are deeper, odder and never without a touch of sadness. Images and perceptions that could be dismissed with a glance, a laugh, an exchange of opinions, occupy him unduly, become more intense in the silence, become significant, become an experience, an adventure, an emotion. Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportionate, the absurd and the forbidden.

If the world misunderstands us, then I don't blame others, it's our problem.

Sometimes, when I open my mouth, all hell breaks loose. Other times, I feel like a voice in the wilderness and I wonder, 'Does anybody get this?'

I always say, the darker the scene, the more fun it is.

It's fascinating to go somewhere where you're away from everything. There are no houses, no buildings, no roads, no people. And for a little less extreme hunting, any place in the West - Colorado, Utah, Montana - that's just beautiful country.

I know what it is to be misunderstood.

Rule No. 1 is you can't be fake. If you're fake, you become a gimmick and you're selling a gimmick; a little gimmick is cool, this is entertainment. But when you base your stuff on mostly real stuff, you never run out of it because every day is a different adventure.

People are always throwing things at me that I've said and I say that I didn't mean anything.

We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.

I did not go to Boston, for with regard to that place I sympathize with one of my neighbors, an old man, who has not been there since the last war, when he was compelled to go. No, I have a real genius for staying at home.

It's just that I don't want to be somebody's crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too.

I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real.

Little flashes of sun on the surface of a cold, dark sea.

Women, O, women! They'll find the baddest meanin' in your words & hold it up.

Just because I have rice on my clothes doesn't mean I've been to a wedding. A Chinese man threw up on me.

Everyone was laughin'. Even that deaf mute boy was breathing heavy and pointing at me. Which is laughter to their kind.

I suppose I really seemed mad, then; but it was only through the awfulness of having said nothing but the truth, and being thought to be deluded.

Some things take so long But how do I explain When not too many people Can see we're all the same And because of all their tears Your eyes can't hope to see The beauty that surrounds them Now, isn't it a pity

Come away with me, he said, we will live on a desert island. I said, I am a desert island. It was not what he had in mind.

Sometimes I don't get you,' I said. She didn't even glance at me. She just smiled toward the television and said, 'You never get me. That's the whole point.

I walked over, my eyes scanning Luna Blu, my house, and Dave's. But it was the building behind them, that empty hotel, that had the tiniest light, provided by one word, written in fluorescent paint. Maybe it wasn't what was once there, in real life. But in this one, it said it all: STAY.

real beauty is so deep you have to move into darkness to understand it.

It is ill to praise, and worse to blame, the thing which you do not understand.