Katherine Mansfield

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

— 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

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

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— 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

If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools. With mushrooms it is so simple — you salt them well, put them aside and have patience. But with love, you have no sooner lighted on anything that bears even the remotest resemblance to it than you are perfectly certain it is not only a genuine specimen, but perhaps the only genuine mushroom ungathered.

— Katherine Mansfield

I'm a writer first & a woman after.

— Katherine Mansfield

I have made it a rule of my life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to become a writer can afford to indulge in it. You can't get it into shape; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.

— Katherine Mansfield

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering must become Love. This is the mystery. This is what I must do.

— Katherine Mansfield

It's an infernal nuisance to love Life as I do. I seem to love it more as time goes on rather than less. It never becomes a habit to me. It's always a marvel. I do hope I'll be able to keep in it long enough to do some really good work. I'm sick of people dying who promise well.

— Katherine Mansfield

Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order. This is what life has taught me.

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

Warm, eager, living life — to be rooted in life — to learn, to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for. … This all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it’s no longer so. I feel happy — deep down. All is well.

— Katherine Mansfield

Were we positive, eager, real — alive? No, we were not. We were a nothingness shot with gleams of what might be.

— Katherine Mansfield

When we can begin to take our failures nonseriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

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.

— 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

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

This all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it's no longer so. I feel happy — deep down. May you be happy too. I'm going to Fontainebleau on Monday and I'll be back here Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. All is well.

— 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

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

— Katherine Mansfield

The world to me is a dream and the people in it are sleepers. I have known a few instances of intensity but that is all. I want to find a world in which these instances are united. Shall I succeed? I scarcely care. What is important is to try & learn to live, and in relation to everything – not isolated. This isolation is death to me.

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.

— Katherine Mansfield