Quotes from Katherine Mansfield

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Life expands or contracts in proportion to one's courage.

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

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

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

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

Ach, Tchekov! Why are you dead? Why can't I talk to you in a big darkish room at late evening—where the light is green from the waving trees outside? I'd like to write a series of Heavens: that would be one.

The truth is that every true admirer of the novels cherishes the happy thought that he alone - reading between the lines - has become the secret friend of their author.

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

How beautiful she loked, but there was nobody to see, nobody.

Light as feathers the witches fly, The horn of the moon is plain to see; By a firefly under a jonquil flower A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.

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

The heavens opened for the sunset to-night. When I had thought the day folded and sealed, came a burst of heavenly bright petals.

Outside the sky is light with stars

She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her.

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.