Katherine Mansfield Quotes

114 Sourced Quotes

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

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

Katherine Mansfield
There is no question of getting beyond it.... The little boat enters the dark fearful gulf and our only cry is to escape — 'put me on land again.'

Katherine Mansfield
As in the physical world, so in the spiritual world, pain does not last forever.

Katherine Mansfield
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.

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

Katherine Mansfield
The wind is like a great bird tumbling over the sea with bright flashing wings.

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

Katherine Mansfield
Why do people always put on such airs when they are saying Goodbye? They seem exquisitely glad to be staying. Are they? Or is it envy?

Katherine Mansfield
Letters are the real curse of my existence. I hate to write them: I have to. If I don't, there they are — the great guilty gates barring my way.

Katherine Mansfield
And wind moving through grass so that the grass quivers. This moves me with an emotion I don't ever understand.

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

Katherine Mansfield
There can be no harm
In just remembering — that is all.

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

Katherine Mansfield
The icicles at dawn this morning were the color of opals — blue lit with fire.

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

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

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

Katherine Mansfield