"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 to guts to betray my country."
- E. M. Forster (1879 - 1970)

"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 got ourselves."
- E. M. Forster (1879 - 1970)

"It is not that the Englishman can't feel -- it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even open his mouth too wide when he talks -- his pipe might fall out if he did."
- E. M. Forster (1879 - 1970)

"One always tends to overpraise a long book because one has got through it."
- E. M. Forster (1879 - 1970)

"Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon."
- E. M. Forster (1879 - 1970)

"To so-called white races are really pinko-grey."
- E. M. Forster (1879 - 1970)

"We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship."
- E. M. Forster (1879 - 1970)