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E. M. Forster Quotes about Character

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Characters must not brood too long. They must not waste time running up and down ladders in their own insides.

Characters must not brood too long. They must not waste time running up and down ladders in their own insides.

E. M. Forster
Running, Character, Long
E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.129, RosettaBooks

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

E. M. Forster
Character, Perfect, Patterns
E. M. Forster (1987). “Commonplace Book”, p.6, Stanford University Press

Chess is a forcing house where the fruits of character can ripen more fully than in life

E. M. Forster
Character, House, Chess

The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises it is flat. Flat characters ... in their purest form ... are constructed round a single idea or quality; when there is more than one factor to them, we get the beginning of the curve toward the round. The really flat character can be experessed in one sentence such as, "I will never desert Mr Micawber." There is Mrs Micawber - she says she won't desert Mr Micawber; she doesn't, and there she is.

E. M. Forster
Character, Curves, Ideas

For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better.

E. M. Forster
Character, Vanity, Changed
E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.85, Delphi Classics

Solidity, caution, integrity, efficiency. Lack of imagination, hypocrisy. These qualities characterize the middle classes in everycountry, but in England they are national characteristics.

E. M. Forster
Integrity, Character, Class

It is devilish difficult to criticise society & also create human beings.

E. M. Forster
Character, Society, Difficult

The novelist, unlike many of his colleagues, makes up a number of word-masses roughly describing himself (roughly: niceties shallcome later), gives them names and sex, assigns them plausible gestures, and causes them to speak by the use of inverted commas, and perhaps to behave consistently.

E. M. Forster
Sex, Character, Names

We may divide characters into flat and round.

E. M. Forster
Character, Literature, May
E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.103, RosettaBooks

Our easiest approach to a definition of any aspect of fiction is always by considering the sort of demand it makes on the reader. Curiosity for the story, human feelings and a sense of value for the characters, intelligence and memory for the plot. What does fantasy ask of us? It asks us to pay something extra.

E. M. Forster
Memories, Character, Empathy

Ulysses ... is a dogged attempt to cover the universe with mud, an inverted Victorianism, an attempt to make crossness and dirt succeed where sweetness and light failed, a simplification of the human character in the interests of Hell.

E. M. Forster
Dog, Character, Light
'Aspects of the Novel' (1927) ch. 6 (on James Joyce's 'Ulysses')

Italy is such a delightful place to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite luxury of Socialism--that true Socialism which is based not on equality of income or character, but on the equality of manners. In the democracy of the caffè or the street the great question of our life has been solved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But it is accomplished at the expense of the sisterhood of women.

E. M. Forster
Character, Reality, Sisterhood
E. M. Forster (2016). “Where Angels Fear to Tread: England Literature”, p.31, 谷月社

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
Character, Fighting, Artist
E. M. Forster (1987). “Commonplace Book”, p.151, Stanford University Press

It is the function of the novelist to reveal the hidden life at its source: to tell us more about Queen Victoria than could be known, and thus to produce a character who is not the Queen Victoria of history.

E. M. Forster
Queens, Character, Novelists
E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.72, RosettaBooks

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