Katherine Mansfield > Quotes

“The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“The mind I love must have wild places.”
― Katherine Mansfield

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

“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.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“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.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“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.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship, was that one had to explain nothing”
― Katherine Mansfield

“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.”
― Katherine Mansfield, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume 1: 1903-1917

“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.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change of attitude.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“The mind I love most 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 fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.”
― Katherine Mansfield, Katherine Mansfield Notebooks: Complete Edition

“You have never been curious about me; you never wanted to explore my soul.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“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.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“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.”
― Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party and Other Stories

“I saw myself driving through Eternity in a timeless taxi.”
― K. Mansfield

“This is not a letter but my arms about you for a brief moment.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“For the special thrilling quality of their friendship was in their complete surrender. Like two open cities in the midst of some vast plain their two minds lay open to each other. And it wasn't as if he rode into hers like a conqueror, armed to the eyebrows and seeing nothing but a gay silken flutter--nor did she enter his like a queen walking on soft petals. No, they were eager, serious travellers, absorbed in understanding what was to be seen and discovering what was hidden--making the most of this extraordinary absolute chance which made it possible for him to be utterly truthful to her and for her to be utterly sincere with him.”
― Katherine Mansfield, The Collected Stories

“I have made it a rule of my 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.”
― Katherine Mansfield

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

“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.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“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.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“I have such a horror of telegrams that ask me how I am!! I always want to reply dead.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“I am a recluse at present & do nothing but write & read & read & write”
― Katherine Mansfield, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume 1: 1903-1917

“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?...”
― Katherine Mansfield, Something Childish But Very Natural

“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.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“Why does one feel so different at night? Why is it so exciting to be awake when everybody else is asleep? Late—it is very late! And yet every moment you feel more and more wakeful, as though you were slowly, almost with every breath, waking up into a new, wonderful, far more thrilling and exciting world than the daylight one. And what is this queer sensation that you’re a conspirator? Lightly, stealthily you move about your room. You take something off the dressing-table and put it down again without a sound. And everything, even the bedpost, knows you, responds, shares your secret…
You're not very fond of your room by day. You never think about it. You're in and out, the door opens and slams, the cupboard creaks. You sit down on the side of your bed, change your shoes and dash out again. A dive down to the glass, two pins in your hair, powder your nose and off again. But now–it's suddenly dear to you. It's a darling little funny room. It's yours. Oh, what a joy it is to own things! Mine–my own!”
― Katherine Mansfield, At the Bay

“To be alive and to be a ‘writer’ is enough.”
― Katherine Mansfield, Journal of Katherine Mansfield

“I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was, too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“Don’t you think the stairs are a good place for reading letters? I do. One is somehow suspended. One is on neutral ground - not in one’s own world nor in a strange one. They are an almost perfect meeting place. Oh Heavens! How stairs do fascinate me when I think of it. Waiting for people - sitting on strange stairs - hearing steps far above, watching the light playing by itself - hearing - far below a door, looking down into a kind of dim brightness, watching someone come up. But I could go on forever. Must put them in a story though! People come out of themselves on stairs - they issue forth, unprotected.”
― Katherine Mansfield, Letters and Journals

“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.”
― Katherine Mansfield