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But I have seen my obstacles: trivialities, learning and poetry. This last needs explaining: the old artist's readiness to dissolve characters into a haze. Characters cannot come alive and fight and guide the world unless the novelist wants them to remain characters.

— E. M. Forster Commonplace Book (1985)

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More quotes by E. M. Forster

There's enough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it.

A Room with a View (1908)

Axiom: Novel must have either one living character or a perfect pattern: fails otherwise.

Commonplace Book (1985)

A humanist has four leading characteristics — curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.

Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)

Science, when applied to personal relationships, is always just wrong.

Selected Letters (1983)

Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wants to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time.

Commonplace Book (1985)

All E. M. Forster quotes →

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: E. M. Forster (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.