Katherine Mansfield Quotes

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

A big bee, a golden furry fellow, crept into a freesia, and the delicate flower leaned over, swung, shook; and when the bee flew away it fluttered still as though it were laughing. Happy, careless flower!

~ 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

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

I do not know why I have such a fancy for this little café. It's dirty and sad, sad. It's not as if it had anything to distinguish it from a hundred others–it hasn't; or as if the same strange types came here every day, whom one could watch from one's corner and recognize and more or less (with a strong accent on the less) get the hang of.But pray don't imagine that those brackets are a confession of my humility before the mystery of the human soul. Not at all; I don't believe in the human soul. I never have. 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

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

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

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

~ Katherine Mansfield

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.

~ 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

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

…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

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

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

~ Katherine Mansfield

I love to close my eyes a moment and think of the land outside, white under the mingled snow and moonlight--the heaps of stones by the roadside white--snow in the furrows. Mon Dieu! How quiet and how patient!

~ 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

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

There were all her feelings for him, sharp and defined, one as true as the other. And there was the other, this hatred, just as real as the rest. She could have done her feelings up in little packets and given them to Stanley. She longed to hand him that last one, for a surprise. She could see his eyes as he opened that...

~ 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

I saw myself driving through Eternity in a timeless taxi.

~ Katherine Mansfield

You have only to say one word and I would know your voice among all other voices. I don't know what it is - 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 your voice saying : Geranium, marigold and verbena. And I feel those three words are all I recall of some forgotten, heavenly language. . . .

~ Katherine Mansfield

Query: Why am I so bitter against Life? And why do I see her as a rag-picker on the American cinema, shuffling along wrapped in a filthy shawl with her old claws crooked over a stick?Answer: The direct result of the American cinema acting upon a weak mind.

~ Katherine Mansfield

We can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough. But the tremendous effort needed- one doesn't always want to make it-does one? ... But what else can be done? What's the alternative? What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself in the face of difficulties.

~ Katherine Mansfield

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.

~ Katherine Mansfield

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

~ Katherine Mansfield

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

~ Katherine Mansfield

We can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough. ... What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself in the face of difficulties.

~ Katherine Mansfield

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

~ Katherine Mansfield

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

~ Katherine Mansfield

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

~ Katherine Mansfield

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

~ Katherine Mansfield

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.

~ 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