Katherine Mansfield quotes:

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

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.

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

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.

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

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

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.

Once we have learned to read, meaning of words can somehow register without consciousness.

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.

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

But, my darling, if you love me,' thought Miss Meadows, 'I don't mind how much it is. Love me as little as you like."

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.

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

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?...

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.

Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month. Others just go over them.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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?

Regret is an appalling waste of time.

Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month. Others just go over them

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

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.

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 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)

The pleasure of all 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Better to write twaddle, anything, than nothing at all.

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....

But the more poetry one reads the more one longs to read!

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.

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.

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

Children are unaccountable little creatures.

Courage is like a disobedient dog, once it starts running away it flies all the faster for your attempts to recall it.

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

Do you remember your childhood? I am always coming across these marvelous accounts by writers who declare that they remember 'everything.' I certainly don't. The dark stretches, the blanks, are much bigger than the bright glimpses. I seem to have spent most of my time like a plant in a cupboard.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

I don't believe other people are ever as foolishly excited as I am while I'm working. How could they be? Writers would have to live in trees.

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.

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

I love the evening star. Does that sound foolish? I used to go into the backyard, after sunset, and wait for it until it shone above the dark gum tree. I used to whisper 'There you are, my darling.' And just in that first moment it seemed to be shining for me alone. It seemed to understand this ... something which is like longing, and yet it is not longing. Or regret - it is more like regret.

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.

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.

I must say, I hate money. But it's the lack of it I hate most.

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.

I saw myself driving through Eternity in a timeless taxi.

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.

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others.

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.

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.

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.

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

I'm a writer first and a woman after.

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?

In the shortest sea voyage there is no sense of time. You have been down in the cabin for hours or days or years. Nobody knows or cares. You know all the people to the point of indifference. You do not believe in dry land any more - you are caught in the pendulum itself, and left there, idly swinging.

In the woods where snow is thick, bars of sunlight lay like pale fire.

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

It is strange that there are times when I feel the stars are not at all solemn: they are secretly gay.

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.

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

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

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.

Oh, how quickly things changed! Why didn't happiness last for ever? For ever wasn't a bit too long.

Outside the sky is light with stars

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

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

roses are the only flowers at garden-parties; the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing.

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.

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.

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

The fields are snowbound no longer; There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green. The snow has been caught up into the sky- So many white clouds-and the blue of the sky is cold. Now the sun walks in the forest, He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers; They shiver, and wake from slumber. Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls. Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears.... A wind dances over the fields. Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter, Yet the little blue lakes tremble And the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver.

The great thing to remember is we can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough.

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.

The mind I love must have wild places.

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

The whole world shall be ours because of our love.

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

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

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.

There is no feeling to be compared with the feeling of having written and finished a story.

Tidied all my papers. Tore up and ruthlessly destroyed much. This is always a great satisfaction.

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

To long for everything: sorrow; to accept everything: joy.

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

Warm, eager, living life-to be rooted in life-to learn, to desire, to know, to feel, to think, to act. This is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.

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.

we cling to our last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves.

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 ...

Whatever happens I have had these blissful, perfect moments and they are worth living for.

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.

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

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

Why it should be such an effort to write to the people one loves I can't imagine. It's none at all to write to those who don't really count.

Why! Why! Why is the middle-class so stodgy - so utterly without a sense of humor?

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

Winter is a terrible time for thin people - terrible! Why should it hound them down, fasten on them, worry them so? Why not, for a change, take a nip, take a snap at the fat ones who wouldn't notice? But no! It is sleek, warm, cat-like summer that makes the fat one's life a misery. Winter is all for bones ...