E. M. Forster Quotes

It is very hard to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings – much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.

Don't try to write anything you can't feel - it will be a failure - 'echoes nothing worth

How truly does this journal contain my real and undisguised thoughts--I always write it according to the humour I am in, and if astranger was to think it worth reading, how capricious--insolent & whimsical I must appear!--one moment flighty and half mad,--the next sad and melancholy. No matter! Its truth and simplicity are its sole recommendations.

I try to be genuine. I try to be real. It's such a subjective thing, but I try to convey an emotion.

Ed is very sexy because his emotions are really there - not forced.

I don't think you should try to be anything you're not. If you're not smiling all the time or always happy - I don't think it matters. If you're having bad day, show you're having a bad day. Don't try to put up something that's fake.

People in day-to-day life tend to skim the surface of things and be polite and careful, and that's not the language I speak. I like talking about feelings, fears and memories, anguish and joy, and I find it in music.

Playing is just about feeling. Playing isn't necessarily about misery. Playing isn't necessarily about happiness. But it's just about letting yourself feel all those things that you have already on the inside of you, but you're all the time trying to push them aside because they don't make for polite conversation or something.

Self-expression is my goal, I want to be real with my feelings. Singing and dancing and all the joy that goes with performing come from my heart. If I can't feel it, I won't do it.

I can't write a lie; the world of imagination is no good. I objectively capture my own experiences and those of my friends. I want to put true feelings into words. If I make a song when I'm sad, it's a dark one, but I think that's good. No matter when I want to be true to myself.

Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don't worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent.

You know what, I just write what I feel.

Most of us start from that position of irony now and what I wanted to do - really felt like I had to do if I was going to write another novel - was move towards something like sincerity.

I'd want the human voice expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real

I would feel really dishonest writing a song that was really sassy, or really confident, because I'm not a supremely confident being. I think that's what people find interesting about what I do; it's very different lyrically.

Peter would think her sentimental. So she was. For she had come to feel that it was the only thing worth saying – what one felt. Cleverness was silly. One must say simply what one felt.

Having an authentic emotional response is always a positive thing.

I don't know when I'm writing dark. I don't know when I'm writing funny or even heartbreaking. I'm always just trying to write it true.

I use myself for each part. Naturally, it's my body, it's my soul, it's my feelings. That's the only way I know how to work. I couldn't pretend.

It is important to express oneself... provided the feelings are real and are taken from your own experience.

True feeling justifies whatever it may cost.

Good manners have much to do with the emotions. To make them ring true, one must feel them, not merely exhibit them.

I feel what I sing, and I sing what I feel. Really, that's all I can do.

Anything I've ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.

And if I have a strong point, it's that I like to believe it's not cheap or schmaltzy sentimentality.