Katherine Mansfield Quotes

Once we have learned to read, meaning of words can somehow register without consciousness.

By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with... the earth and the wonders thereof - the sea - the sun.

But the more poetry one reads the more one longs to read!

That's all life is - something childish and very natural. Isn't it?

I am going to enjoy life in Paris I know. It is so human and there is something noble in the city... It is a real city, old and fine and life plays in it for everybody to see.

Better to write twaddle, anything, than nothing at all.

Whatever happens I have had these blissful, perfect moments and they are worth living for.

You have never been curious about me; you never wanted to explore my soul.

I'm a writer first and a woman after.

Children are unaccountable little creatures.

Wind moving through grass so that the grass quivers. This moves me with an emotion I don't even understand.

conversation is like a dear little baby that is brought in to be handed round. You must rock it, nurse it, keep it on the move if you want it to keep smiling.

Tidied all my papers. Tore up and ruthlessly destroyed much. This is always a great satisfaction.

Ah, what happiness it is to be with people who all are happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes.

In the woods where snow is thick, bars of sunlight lay like pale fire.

I saw myself driving through Eternity in a timeless taxi.

To long for everything: sorrow; to accept everything: joy.

Who is to decide between 'Let it be' and 'Force it'?

Oh, how quickly things changed! Why didn't happiness last for ever? For ever wasn't a bit too long.

There are in life as many aspects as attitudes towards it, and aspects change with attitudes.

Perhaps it does not matter so very much what it is one loves in this world. But love something one must.

... I'd always rather be with people who loved me too little rather than with people who loved me too much.

As in the physical world, so in the spiritual world, pain does not last forever.

Why! Why! Why is the middle-class so stodgy - so utterly without a sense of humor?

I really only have Perfect Fun with myself. Other people won't stop and look at the things I want to look at or, if they do, they stop to please me or to humor me or to keep the peace.

Isn't life,' she stammered, 'isn't life--' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood. 'Isn't it, darling?' said Laurie.

The great thing to remember is we can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough.

Courage is like a disobedient dog, once it starts running away it flies all the faster for your attempts to recall it.

I feel I must live alone, alone, alone - with artists only to touch the door. Every artist cuts off his ear and nails it on the outside of the door for the others to shout into.

That is the fearful part of having been near death. One knows how easy it is to die. The barriers that are up for everybody else are down for you, and you've only to slip through.

Every time one leaves anywhere, something precious, which ought not to be killed, is left to die.

roses are the only flowers at garden-parties; the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing.

I think I hate snow, downright hate it. There is something stupefying in it, a kind of 'You must be worse before you're better,' and down it spins.

Why it should be such an effort to write to the people one loves I can't imagine. It's none at all to write to those who don't really count.

we cling to our last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves.

I don't believe other people are ever as foolishly excited as I am while I'm working. How could they be? Writers would have to live in trees.

Letters are the real curse of my existence. I hate to write them: I have to. If I don't, there they are - the great guilty gates barring my way.

Yes, my mother's death is a terrible sorrow to me. I feel - do you know what I mean - the silence of it so. She was more alive than anyone I have ever known.

To be alive and to be a ‘writer’ is enough.

Outside the sky is light with stars

Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others ... Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth."(Journal entry, 14 October 1922)

Saw the sun rise. A lovely apricot sky with flames in it and then solemn pink. Heavens, how beautiful...I feel so full of love to-day after having seen the sun rise.

Isn't life, ' she stammered, 'isn't life--' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood.'Isn't it, darling?' said Laurie.

I can never be perfectly certain whether Helen was got with child by Leonard Bast or by his fatal forgotten umbrella. All things considered, I think it must have been the umbrella.

Everything about her was sweet, pale like honey. You would not have been surprised to see a bee caught in the tangles of that yellow hair.

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering must become Love. That is the mystery.

The truth is that every true admirer of the novels cherishes the happy thought that he alone - reading between the lines - has become the secret friend of their author.

Sleeping was her latest discovery. 'It's so wonderful. One simply shuts one's eyes, that's all. It's so delicious.

Ah, what happiness it is to be with people who are all happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes.

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering must become love. That is the mystery.