Katherine Mansfield Quotes

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The mind I love must have wild places.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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?

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

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

Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it is good only for wallowing in.

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.

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

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

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?

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others.

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

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

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

Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death.

Should I never return, all is in order.

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

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

Regret is an appalling waste of time.

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

By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with... the earth and the wonders thereof - the sea - the sun.

Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to be a writer can afford to indulge in it.

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.