He stretched out his hands as he sang, sadly, because all beauty is sadโฆThe poem had done no โgoodโ to anyone, but it was a passing reminder, a breath from the divine lips of beauty, a nightingale between two worlds of dust. Less explicit than the call to Krishna, it voiced our loneliness nevertheless, our isolation, our need for the Friend who never comes yet is not entirely disproved.
E. M. ForsterLove felt and returned, love which our bodies exact and our hearts have transfigured, love which is the most real thing that we shall ever meet, reappeared now as the world's enemy, and she must stifle it.
E. M. ForsterThe 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.
E. M. ForsterAt times our need for a sympathetic gesture is so great that we care not what exactly it signifies or how much we may have to pay for it afterwards.
E. M. ForsterIn Europe life retreats out of the cold, and exquisite fireside myths have resultedโBalder, Persephoneโbut [in India] the retreat is from the source of life, the treacherous sun, and no poetry adorns it because disillusionment cannot be beautiful. Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form, and India fails to accommodate them.
E. M. Forster