100+ Katherine Mansfield Quotes | InspiringQuotes.us

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

Topics: Reading, Secret, Happy Thoughts, Between The Lines

quote risk risk anything care no more for the opinions of others for those voices do the hardest katherine mansfield Quotes

Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different.

source: - "Talks with Katherine Mansfield at Fontainebleau" by A. R. Orage, The Century Magazine, November 1924.

Topics: Friendship, Positive, Forgiveness, Great Attitude, Inspirational Positive Attitude

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy, you can't build on it it's only good for wallowing in.

Topics: Inspirational, Motivational, Happiness, You Will Regret, Never Regret

There are always these moments in life when the limits of suffering are reached and we become heroes and heroines.

Topics: Hero, Suffering, Limits, Heroes And Heroines

The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, Margaret Scott (2008). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1922-1923”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Book, Reading, Literacy, Reading For Pleasure, Pleasure Of Reading

In fact, isn't it a joy - there is hardly a greater one - to find a new book, a living book, and to know that it will remain with you while life lasts?

Topics: Book, Joy, Lasts, New Books

I adore Life. What do all the fools matter and all the stupidity. They do matter but somehow for me they cannot touch the body of Life. Life is marvellous. I want to be deeply rooted in it - to live - to expand - to breathe in it - to rejoice - to share it. To give and to be asked for Love.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, Margaret Scott (1984). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1919-1920”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Giving, Stupidity, Want, Rooted

If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools.

Topics: Best Love, Mushrooms, Toadstools, False Love

The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.

Topics: Love, Dream, Flower, Wild Places

I have such a horror of telegrams that ask me how I am!! I always want to reply dead.

Topics: Want, Horror, Ask Me, Telegrams

What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly, by a feeling of bliss - absolute bliss - as though you'd suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle into every finger and toe?...

Topics: Feelings, Littles, Sparks, Late Afternoon, Fingers And Toes

I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1987). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II: 1918-September 1919”, OUP Oxford

Topics: Love, Friendship, Real Friends, One Friend, Being A Good Friend

I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.

source: - Journal, 1922

Topics: Encouraging, Want, Becoming, Understanding Myself

The mind I love must have wild places.

Topics: Mind

How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2016). “KATHERINE MANSFIELD Premium Collection: 160+ Short Stories & Poems (Literature Classics Series): The Complete Short Stories and Poetry of Katherine Mansfield: Bliss, The Garden Party, The Dove’s Nest, Something Childish, In a German Pension, The Aloe, Poems at the Villa Pauline, Child Verses...”, p.6, e-artnow

Topics: Civilization, Body, Shut Up

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1996). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume IV: 1920-1921”, p.150, Clarendon Press

Topics: Acceptance, Accepting

Do the hardest thing on earth for you. ACT YOURSELF.

Topics: Earth, Hardest, Taking Risks, Daring To Be Great, Chance And Risk

Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order.

Topics: Journey, Order, Risk, Preparing For Death

It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Margaret Scott (1997). “The Katherine Mansfield notebooks”

Topics: Laughing, Importance, Failure In Life

How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you â€” you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences â€” like rags and shreds of your very life.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, Margaret Scott (2008). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1922-1923”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Rags, Littles, Fence, Fluttering

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back.

Topics: Regret, Looks, Rules Of Life

To acknowledge the presence of fear is to give birth to failure.

Topics: Fear, Giving, Birth

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

Topics: Soul, Curious, Wanted

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

Topics: Happiness, Eye, Hands

Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.

Topics: Writing, Imagine, Looking Back

Life never become a habit to me. It's always a marvel.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1996). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume IV: 1920-1921”, p.231, Clarendon Press

Topics: Life, Life Lesson, Habit

I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face.

Topics: Rain, Weather, Feelings, Love Rain, I Love Rain

You are a Queen. Let mine be the joy of giving you your kingdom.

Topics: Queens, Giving, Joy, Joy Of Giving

The fields are snowbound no longer; There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green. The snow has been caught up into the sky- So many white clouds-and the blue of the sky is cold. Now the sun walks in the forest, He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers; They shiver, and wake from slumber. Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls. Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears.... A wind dances over the fields. Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter, Yet the little blue lakes tremble And the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver.

Topics: Laughter, Spring, Blue, Spring Poems, White Clouds

All the wild sweetness of the flower Tangled against the wall. It was that magic, silent hour.... The branches grew so tall They twined themselves into a bower. The sun shown ... and the fall Of yellow blossom on the grass! You feel that golden rain? Both of you could not hold, alas, (both of you tried, in vain) A memory, stranger. So I pass.... It will not come again.

Topics: Memories, Wall, Spring

Bless you, my darling, and remember you are always in the heart - oh tucked so close there is no chance of escape - of your sister.

Topics: Sister, Heart, Chance, Inspirational Sisterhood, Other Sister

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

source: - Journal, 10 Oct. 1922

Topics: Inspirational, Positive, Wisdom, Chance And Risk, Facing The Truth

If you wish to live, you must first attend your own funeral.

Topics: Philosophy, Funeral, Wish

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

Topics: Long, Joy, Sorrow

There is no feeling to be compared with the feeling of having written and finished a story.

Topics: Feelings, Stories, Written

I must say, I hate money. But it's the lack of it I hate most.

Topics: Hate, I Hate

I think of you often. Especially in the evenings, when I am on the balcony and it’s too dark to write or to do anything but wait for the stars. A time I love. One feels half disembodied, sitting like a shadow at the door of one’s being while the dark tide rises. Then comes the moon, marvellously serene, and small stars, very merry for some reason of their own. It is so easy to forget, in a worldly life, to attend to these miracles.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1974). “The Letters of Katherine Mansfield”

Topics: Stars, Writing, Dark, I Think Of You, Worldly Life

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others.

source: - Journal, 1922

Topics: Understanding, Want, Superficial, Understanding Myself

It's rather nice to think of oneself as a sailor bending over the map of one's mind and deciding where to go and how to go. The great thing to remember is we can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, Margaret Scott (2008). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1922-1923”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Strong, Nice, Thinking, Bending Over

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1974). “The Letters of Katherine Mansfield”

Topics: Perfect, Moments, Whatever Happens, Perfect Moments

No, no the mind I love must still have wild places - a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown litde wood, the chance of a snake or two (real snakes), a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with those litde flowers planted by the wind.

source: - "Katherine Mansfield Notebooks".

Topics: Love, Dream, Flower, Wild Places, Orchard

By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love - the earth and the wonders thereof - the sea - the sun, all that we mean when we speak of the external world. I want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious, direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1956). “Stories. Selected,”

Topics: Mean, Sea, Breathing, Breathing Life, Understanding Myself

What happiness it is to listen to rain at night; joyful relief, ease; a lapping-round and hushing and brooding tenderness, all are mingled together in the sound of the fast-falling rain. God, looking down upon the rainy earth, sees how faint are these lights shining in little windows, - how easily put out.

Topics: Rain, Fall, Night, Looking Down, Rain At Night

My love for you tonight is so deep and tender that it seems to be outside myself as well.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1951). “Letters to John Middleton Murry, 1913-1922”

Topics: My Love For You, Greatest Love, Tonight

You might drop your heart into me and you'd never hear it touch bottom.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1951). “Letters to John Middleton Murry, 1913-1922”

Topics: Heart, Greatest Love, Might

The truth is friendship is every bit as sacred and eternal as marriage.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1996). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume IV: 1920-1921”, p.277, Clarendon Press

Topics: Friendship, Sacred, Truth Is, Eternal Friendship

When we begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Margaret Scott (1997). “The Katherine Mansfield notebooks”

Topics: Failure, Mean, Success And Failure, Failure In Life, Success Failure

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2016). “KATHERINE MANSFIELD Premium Collection: 160+ Short Stories & Poems (Literature Classics Series): The Complete Short Stories and Poetry of Katherine Mansfield: Bliss, The Garden Party, The Dove’s Nest, Something Childish, In a German Pension, The Aloe, Poems at the Villa Pauline, Child Verses...”, p.327, e-artnow

Topics: Life Is, Natural

What I feel for you can’t be conveyed in phrasal combinations; It either screams out loud or stays painfully silent but I promise — it beats words. It beats worlds. I promise

Topics: Love, Promise, World

September is different from all other months. It is more magical. I feel the strange chemical change in the earth which produces mushrooms is the cause, too, of the extra 'life' in the air - a resilience, a sparkle.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.1102, Delphi Classics

Topics: Air, Mushrooms, Resilience

Would you not like to try all sorts of lives - one is so very small - but that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, Margaret Scott (2008). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1922-1923”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Writing, People, Trying, Impersonate

When I say "I fear" - don't let it disturb you, dearest heart. We all fear when we are in waiting-rooms. Yet we must pass beyond them, and if the other can keep calm, it is all the help we can give each other.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.1136, Delphi Classics

Topics: Heart, Waiting Rooms, Giving

I am poor - obscure - just eighteen years of age - with a rapacious appetite for everything and principles as light as my purse.

source: - Brownlee Jean Kirkpatrick, Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan (1989). “Katherine Mansfield: selected letters”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Light, Years, Age

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1954). “Journal”

Topics: Force

Do you remember your childhood? I am always coming across these marvelous accounts by writers who declare that they remember 'everything.' I certainly don't. The dark stretches, the blanks, are much bigger than the bright glimpses. I seem to have spent most of my time like a plant in a cupboard.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2016). “KATHERINE MANSFIELD Premium Collection: 160+ Short Stories & Poems (Literature Classics Series): The Complete Short Stories and Poetry of Katherine Mansfield: Bliss, The Garden Party, The Dove’s Nest, Something Childish, In a German Pension, The Aloe, Poems at the Villa Pauline, Child Verses...”, p.566, e-artnow

Topics: Dark, Remembers Everything, Childhood

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

Topics: Success, Attitude, Aspect

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.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1954). “Journal”

Topics: Fun, Please Me, People

Ach, Tchekov! Why are you dead? Why can’t I talk to you in a big darkish room at late evening—where the light is green from the waving trees outside? I’d like to write a series of Heavens: that would be one.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Margaret Scott (1997). “The Katherine Mansfield notebooks”

Topics: Writing, Light, Tree

The whole world shall be ours because of our love.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2006). “The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield”, p.545, Wordsworth Editions

Topics: World, Our Love, Whole

It's a terrible thing to be alone - yes it is - it is - but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath - as terrible as you like - but a mask.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, Margaret Scott (1984). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1903-1917”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Lonely, Loneliness, Mask

there does seem to me something sad in life. It is hard to say what it is. I don't mean the sorrow that we all know, like illness and poverty and death. No, it is something different. It is there, deep down, deep down, part of one, like one's breathing.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.420, Delphi Classics

Topics: Sadness, Mean, Breathing

But one day we shall be rich, and the next poor. One day we shall dine in a palace and the next we'll sit in a forest and toast mushrooms on a hatpin.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2016). “KATHERINE MANSFIELD Premium Collection: 160+ Short Stories & Poems (Literature Classics Series): The Complete Short Stories and Poetry of Katherine Mansfield: Bliss, The Garden Party, The Dove’s Nest, Something Childish, In a German Pension, The Aloe, Poems at the Villa Pauline, Child Verses...”, p.527, e-artnow

Topics: Mushrooms, Dine In, One Day, Dine

I'm a writer first and a woman after.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1951). “Letters to John Middleton Murry, 1913-1922”

Topics: Firsts

I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future plusses.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, Margaret Scott (2008). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1922-1923”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Friendship, Hope, Asking

To work - to work! It is such infinite delight to know that we still have the best things to do.

source: - Brownlee Jean Kirkpatrick, Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan (1989). “Katherine Mansfield: selected letters”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Work, Delight, Infinite

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1929). “The Letters of Katherine Mansfield”

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2016). “KATHERINE MANSFIELD Premium Collection: 160+ Short Stories & Poems (Literature Classics Series): The Complete Short Stories and Poetry of Katherine Mansfield: Bliss, The Garden Party, The Dove’s Nest, Something Childish, In a German Pension, The Aloe, Poems at the Villa Pauline, Child Verses...”, p.251, e-artnow

Topics: Long, Lasts, Things Change

Can one do nothing for the dead? And for a long time the answer had been - Nothing!

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.449, Delphi Classics

Topics: Long, Answers, Long Time

I love the night. I love to feel the tide of darkness rising, slowly and slowly washing, turning over and over, lifting, floating, all that lies strewn upon the dark beach, all that lies hid in rocky hollows.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2006). “The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield”, p.362, Wordsworth Editions

Topics: Beach, Lying, Dark

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.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Margaret Scott (1997). “The Katherine Mansfield notebooks”

Topics: Hate, Winter, Thinking

Oh, impossible. Fancy cream puffs so soon after breakfast. The very idea made one shudder. All the same, two minutes later Jose and Laura were licking their fingers with that absorbed inward look that only comes from whipped cream.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.286, Delphi Classics

Topics: Ideas, Two, Looks, Cream Puffs, Whipped Cream

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Margaret Scott (1997). “The Katherine Mansfield notebooks”

Topics: Moving, Wind, Emotion, Quiver

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.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2016). “KATHERINE MANSFIELD – The Ultimate Short Stories & Poetry Collection: 100+ Titles in One Volume (Literature Classics Series): Prelude, Bliss, At the Bay, The Garden Party, A Birthday, Poems at the Villa Pauline, Child Verses and many more”, p.156, e-artnow

Topics: Matter, Said, Darling

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2016). “KATHERINE MANSFIELD Premium Collection: 160+ Short Stories & Poems (Literature Classics Series): The Complete Short Stories and Poetry of Katherine Mansfield: Bliss, The Garden Party, The Dove’s Nest, Something Childish, In a German Pension, The Aloe, Poems at the Villa Pauline, Child Verses...”, p.316, e-artnow

Topics: Doe, World, Matter

England is merely an island of beef swimming in a warm gulf stream of gravy.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2009). “Stories”, p.33, Vintage

Topics: Food, Swimming, Islands, Gravy

What is it with me? Am I absolutely nobody, but merely inordinately vain? I do not know…. But I am most fearfully unhappy. That is all. I am so unhappy that I wish I was dead—yet I should be mad to die when I have not yet lived at all.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.1297, Delphi Classics

Topics: Mad, Wish, Unhappy

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.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, John Middleton Murry (1945). “The Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield”

Topics: Baby, Moving, Rocks, Keep Smiling

I am a recluse at present & do nothing but write & read & read & write

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, Margaret Scott (1984). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1903-1917”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Writing, Recluse

if one really does try to find out why it is that people don't leave each other, one discovers a mystery. It is because they can't; they are bound. And nobody on earth knows what are the bonds that bind them except those two.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2016). “KATHERINE MANSFIELD Premium Collection: 160+ Short Stories & Poems (Literature Classics Series): The Complete Short Stories and Poetry of Katherine Mansfield: Bliss, The Garden Party, The Dove’s Nest, Something Childish, In a German Pension, The Aloe, Poems at the Villa Pauline, Child Verses...”, p.562, e-artnow

Topics: Two, People, Trying

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2011). “Bliss”, p.13, Penguin UK

Topics: Class, Sense Of Humor, Middle

Now's the time when children's noses All become as red as roses And the colour of their faces Makes me think of orchard places Where the juicy apples grow, And tomatoes in a row.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.647, Delphi Classics

Topics: Children, Thinking, Apples, Orchard

I saw myself driving through Eternity in a timeless taxi.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.166, Delphi Classics

Topics: Saws, Driving, Eternity

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Margaret Scott (1997). “The Katherine Mansfield notebooks”

Topics: Ought, Dies, Left

What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, Margaret Scott (2008). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1922-1923”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Asking, Want, Faces

In the shortest sea voyage there is no sense of time. You have been down in the cabin for hours or days or years. Nobody knows or cares. You know all the people to the point of indifference. You do not believe in dry land any more - you are caught in the pendulum itself, and left there, idly swinging.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2016). “KATHERINE MANSFIELD Premium Collection: 160+ Short Stories & Poems (Literature Classics Series): The Complete Short Stories and Poetry of Katherine Mansfield: Bliss, The Garden Party, The Dove’s Nest, Something Childish, In a German Pension, The Aloe, Poems at the Villa Pauline, Child Verses...”, p.345, e-artnow

Topics: Travel, Believe, Years, Dry Land, Sea Voyage

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Margaret Scott (1997). “The Katherine Mansfield notebooks”

Topics: Spiritual, Hurt, Pain

I want so to live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I want to be writing (Though I may write about cabmen. That’s no matter.) But warm, eager, living life — to be rooted in life — to learn, to desire, to feel, to think, to act. This is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.1136, Delphi Classics

Topics: Live Life, Book, Writing

The ostrich burying its head in the sand does at any rate wish to convey the impression that its head is the most important part of it.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.1039, Delphi Classics

Topics: Ostriches, Wish, Important, Burying

Children are unaccountable little creatures.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.618, Delphi Classics

Topics: Children, Littles, Creatures

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.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.1079, Delphi Classics

Topics: Cutting, Artist, Doors

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.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1974). “The Letters of Katherine Mansfield”

Topics: Easy, Near Death, Fearful

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.1064, Delphi Classics

Topics: People, Littles, Too Much

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2006). “The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield”, p.344, Wordsworth Editions

Topics: Tree, Lasts, Pleasure

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2016). “The Garden Party (Centaurus Classics) [The 50 greatest novels of all time - #02]”, p.41, Katherine Mansfield

Topics: Party, Flower, Garden

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.1121, Delphi Classics

Topics: Order, Paper, Satisfaction

I love this place; I love mountains and big skies and forests. And the weather is still supremely beautiful even though the lower peaks are powdered with fresh snow. But Heavens! What sun. It never has an ending. I am basking at this minute - half past four - too hot without a hat, & the sky is that transparent blue only to be seen in autumn - the forest trees steeped in light.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1996). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume IV: 1920-1921”, p.313, Clarendon Press

Topics: Beautiful, Autumn, Past, Basking, Fresh Snow

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.549, Delphi Classics

Topics: Running, Dog, Courage

Warm, eager, living life-to be rooted in life-to learn, to desire, to know, to feel, to think, to act. This is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.1136, Delphi Classics

Topics: Life, Thinking, Desire

Winter is a terrible time for thin people - terrible! Why should it hound them down, fasten on them, worry them so? Why not, for a change, take a nip, take a snap at the fat ones who wouldn't notice? But no! It is sleek, warm, cat-like summer that makes the fat one's life a misery. Winter is all for bones.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2006). “The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield”, p.413, Wordsworth Editions

Topics: Summer, Cat, Winter, Terrible Times

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

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Margaret Scott (1997). “The Katherine Mansfield notebooks”

Topics: Alive, Enough

Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month. Others just go over them.

Topics: Couple, Women, Months

Outside the sky is light with stars

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2016). “KATHERINE MANSFIELD – The Ultimate Short Stories & Poetry Collection: 100+ Titles in One Volume (Literature Classics Series): Prelude, Bliss, At the Bay, The Garden Party, A Birthday, Poems at the Villa Pauline, Child Verses and many more”, p.384, e-artnow

Topics: Stars, Light, Sky

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.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (1987). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II: 1918-September 1919”, OUP Oxford

Topics: Mother, Mean, Silence

It is strange that there are times when I feel the stars are not at all solemn: they are secretly gay.

source: - Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.1092, Delphi Classics

Topics: Stars, Gay, Strange

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.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, Margaret Scott (1984). “The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1903-1917”, Oxford University Press, USA

Topics: Real, Play, Cities

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

Topics: Writing

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

Topics: Book, Reading, Consciousness, Meanings Of Words, Register

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.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Margaret Scott (1997). “The Katherine Mansfield notebooks”

Topics: Writing, People, Effort

I love the evening star. Does that sound foolish? I used to go into the backyard, after sunset, and wait for it until it shone above the dark gum tree. I used to whisper 'There you are, my darling.' And just in that first moment it seemed to be shining for me alone. It seemed to understand this ... something which is like longing, and yet it is not longing. Or regret - it is more like regret.

source: - Katherine Mansfield, Ian Alistair Gordon (1974). “Undiscovered country: the New Zealand stories of Katherine Mansfield”

Topics: Stars, Regret, Sunset

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.