Katherine Mansfield Quotes & Sayings

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. — Katherine Mansfield

No, she never recovered, madam. She had a stroke at the end. Last words she ever said was - very slow, "Look in - the - Look - in - " And then she was gone. — 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

Regret is an appalling waste of time. — Katherine Mansfield

Mrs. Stubbs, and she pointed dramatically to the life-size head and shoulders of a burly man with a dead white rose in the buttonhole of his coat that made you think of a curl of cold mutting fat. Just below, in silver — Katherine Mansfield

We cling to our last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves. — Katherine Mansfield

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

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. — Katherine Mansfield

The whole world shall be ours because of our love. — Katherine Mansfield

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? — Katherine Mansfield

Delighted of course. It will only be a very scratch meal - just the sandwich crusts and broken meringue-shells and what's left over. Yes, isn't it a perfect morning? — Katherine Mansfield

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. — Katherine Mansfield

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. — Katherine Mansfield

I sometimes wonder whether the act of surrender is not one of the greatest of all - the highest. It is one of the [most] difficult of all ... You see it's so immensely complicated. It needs real humility and at the same time, an absolute belief in one's own essential freedom. It is an act of faith. At the last moments, like all great acts, it is pure risk. This is true for me as a human being and as a writer. Dear Heaven, how hard it is to let go - to step into the blue. And yet one's creative life depends on it and one desires to do nothing else. — Katherine Mansfield

Better to write twaddle, anything, than nothing at all. — Katherine Mansfield

his hands clasped over a huge carved walking-stick, and a big old woman, sitting upright, with a roll of knitting on her embroidered — Katherine Mansfield

Outside the sky is light with stars — Katherine Mansfield

EM Forster never gets any further than warming the tea pot ... Is it not beautifully warm? Yes, but there ain't going to be no tea. — Katherine Mansfield

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

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. — Katherine Mansfield

I believe that people are like portmanteaux - packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle ... — 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

Oh, with you, I could conquer the world - oh, with you I could catch hold of the moon like a little silver sixpence. — Katherine Mansfield

Life never becomes a habit to me. It's always a marvel. — Katherine Mansfield

It was; she lifted her head and smiled. Only two people shared her "special" seat: a fine old man in a velvet coat, his hands clasped over a huge carved walking-stick, and a big old woman, sitting upright, with a roll of knitting on her embroidered apron. They did not speak. This was disappointing, for Miss Brill always looked forward to the conversation. She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her. She glanced, sideways, at the old couple. Perhaps they would go soon. Last Sunday, too, hadn't been as interesting as usual. An Englishman and his wife, he wearing a dreadful Panama hat and she button boots. And she'd gone on the whole time about how she ought to wear spectacles; she knew she needed them; but that — Katherine Mansfield

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. — Katherine Mansfield

No, madam, never now. Of course, I did think of it at one time. But it wasn't to be. He had a little flower-shop just down — Katherine Mansfield

I thought how true it was that the world was a delightful place if it were not for the people, and how more than true it was that people were not worth troubling about, and that wise men should set their affections upon nothing smaller than cities, heavenly or otherwise, and countrysides which are always heavenly. — Katherine Mansfield

The Samuel Josephs were not a family. They were a swarm. The moment you entered the house they cropped up and jumped out at you from under the tables, through the stair rails, behind the doors, behind the coats in the passage. Impossible to count them: impossible to distinguish between them. — Katherine Mansfield

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

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming. — Katherine Mansfield

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

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. — Katherine Mansfield

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

... Oh dear, I sometimes think ... whatever would I do if anything happened ... But thinking's no good, is it, madam? Thinking won't help. When I find myself doing that, I say to myself, come along, Ellen! Stop it this moment, my girl! Stop that silly thinking ... ! — Katherine Mansfield

And the two women stood side by side looking at the slender, flowering tree. Although it was so still it seemed, like the flame of a candle, to stretch up, to point, to quiver in the bright air, to grow taller and taller as they gazed - almost to touch the rim of the round, silver moon.
How long did they stand there? Both, as it were, caught in that circle of unearthly light, understanding each other perfectly, creatures of another world, and wondering what they were to do in this one with all this blissful treasure that burned in their bosoms and dropped, in silver flowers, from their hair and hands? — Katherine Mansfield

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. — Katherine Mansfield

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

The late evening is the time of times. Then with that unearthly beauty before one it is not hard to realise how far one has to go. To write something that will be worthy of that rising moon, that pale light. — Katherine Mansfield

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

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. — Katherine Mansfield

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. — Katherine Mansfield

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. — Katherine Mansfield

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

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. — Katherine Mansfield

turned away, took out his cigarette case, but remembering how the — Katherine Mansfield

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

The heavens opened for the sunset to-night. When I had thought the day folded and sealed, came a burst of heavenly bright petals. — Katherine Mansfield

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) — Katherine Mansfield

Got a little - well - feeble as you might say. Of course, she was never dangerous; she was the sweetest old lady. — Katherine Mansfield

Laura's upbringing made her wonder for a moment whether it was quite respectful of a workman to talk to her of bangs slap in the eye. But she did quite follow him. — Katherine Mansfield

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

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. — Katherine Mansfield

I used to believe I was merely words and I do not know whether I shall start hoping for something more. You planted that sense of hope in a secret deeply hidden place; it had walls made of bricks and huge abandoned gardens full of despair. It was covered in dusty waves and it was kept underground where no soul would ever walk. And you walked there - you planted hope. And now I cannot imagine myself without it. — Katherine Mansfield

slipping between the smooth stones, gushing into ferny basins and out again; and there was the splashing of big drops on large leaves, and something else - what was it? - a faint stirring and shaking, the snapping of a twig and then such silence that it seemed some one was listening. Round the corner of Crescent Bay, between the piled-up masses of broken rock, a flock of sheep came pattering. They were huddled together, a small, tossing, woolly mass, and their thin, stick-like legs trotted along quickly as if the cold and the quiet — Katherine Mansfield

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

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. — Katherine Mansfield

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. — 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

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. — Katherine Mansfield

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

But the more poetry one reads the more one longs to read! — Katherine Mansfield

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 ... — Katherine Mansfield

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. — Katherine Mansfield

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

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

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. — Katherine Mansfield

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

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

The most thrilling day of the year, the first real day of Spring had enclosed its warm delicious beauty even to London eyes. It had put a spangle in every colour and a new tone in every voice, and city folks walked as though they carried real bodies under their clothes with real live hearts pumping the still blood through. — Katherine Mansfield

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

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

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

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

It's not your fault. Don't think that. It's just fate. — Katherine Mansfield

Goodness gracious! - What's that? It's the clock striking! And here I've been keeping you awake. Oh, madam, you ought to have stopped me... Can I tuck in your feet? I always tuck in my lady's feet, every night, just the same. And she says, "Good night, Ellen. Sleep sound and wake early!" I don't know what I should do if she didn't say that, now. ... — Katherine Mansfield

When she looked through the dark windows at the stars, they had long beams like wings ... — Katherine Mansfield

This is not a letter but my arms around you for a brief moment. — Katherine Mansfield

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

Hail, brother! All hail, Thou Mighty One!" A velvety bass voice came booming over the water. Great — Katherine Mansfield

The English language is damned difficult, but it's also damned rich, and so clear and bright that you can search out the darkest places with it. — Katherine Mansfield

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 ... — Katherine Mansfield

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

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. — Katherine Mansfield

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. — Katherine Mansfield

It is true when you are by yourself and you think about life, it is always sad. All that excitement and so on has a way of suddenly leaving you, and it's as though, in the silence, somebody called your name, and you heard your name for the first time. — Katherine Mansfield

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

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

... A wet night. They are going home together under an umbrella. They stop on the door to press their wet cheeks together. — Katherine Mansfield

To and fro, to and fro over the fine red sand on the floor of the dove house, walked the two doves. One was always in front of the other. One ran forward, uttering a little cry, and the other followed, solemnly bowing and bowing. "You see," explained Anne, "the one in front, she's Mrs. Dove. She looks at Mr. Dove and gives that little laugh and runs forward, and he follows her, bowing and bowing. — Katherine Mansfield

White! he turned as white as a woman. — Katherine Mansfield

Leila was sure ifhe partner didn't come and she had to listen to that marvellous music and to watch the others sliding, gliding over the golden floor, she would die at least, or faint, or lift her arms and fly out of one of those dark windows that showed the stars. — Katherine Mansfield

Light as feathers the witches fly,
The horn of the moon is plain to see;
By a firefly under a jonquil flower
A goblin toasts a bumble-bee. — Katherine Mansfield

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. — Katherine Mansfield

You have only to say one word and I would know your voice among all other voices. I don't know what is it- I've often wondered - that makes your voice such a - haunting memory... Do you remember that first afternoon we spent together at Kew Gardens? You were so surprised because I did not know the names of any flowers. I am still just as ignorant for all your telling me. But whenever it is very fine and warm, and I see some bright colours - it's awfully strange - I hear you voice saying: "Geranium, marigold, and verbena." And I feel those three words are all I recall of some forgotten, heavenly language... You remember that afternoon? — Katherine Mansfield

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

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

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