Top 120 Katherine Mansfield Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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.”

— Katherine Mansfield

52. “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

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

— Katherine Mansfield

54. “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.”

— Katherine Mansfield

55. “To work – to work! It is such infinite delight to know that we still have the best things to do.”

— Katherine Mansfield

56. “As in the physical world, so in the spiritual world, pain does not last forever.”

— Katherine Mansfield

57. “As for the roses, you could not help feeling they understood that roses are the only flowers that impress people at garden-parties; the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing.”

— Katherine Mansfield

58. “And it seemed to her that kisses, voices, tinkling spoons, laughter, the smell of crushed grass were somehow inside her.”

— Katherine Mansfield

59. “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.”

— Katherine Mansfield

60. “Life never become a habit to me. It’s always a marvel.”

— Katherine Mansfield

61. “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

62. “That’s all life is – something childish and very natural. Isn’t it?”

— Katherine Mansfield

63. “It’s not your fault. Don’t think that. It’s just fate.”

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

65. “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.”

— Katherine Mansfield

66. “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

67. “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.”

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

71. “Short stories can be like photographs, catching people at some moment in their lives and trapping the memory for ever. There they are, smiling or frowning, looking sad, happy, serious, surprised... And behind those smiles and those frowns lie all the experience of life, the fears and delights, the hopes and the dreams.”

— Katherine Mansfield

72. “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.”

— Katherine Mansfield

73. “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

74. “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.”

— Katherine Mansfield

75. “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

76. “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

77. “Then something immense came into view; an enormous shock-haired giant with his arms stretched out. It was the big gum-tree outside Mrs. Stubbs’ shop, and as they passed by there was a strong whiff of eucalyptus. And now big spots of light gleamed in the mist. The shepherd.”

— Katherine Mansfield

78. “I long to do wild, passionate things.”

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

80. “The smell of leaves and wet black earth mingled with the sharp smell of the sea.”

— Katherine Mansfield

81. “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

82. “Regret is an appalling waste of time.”

— Katherine Mansfield

83. “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

84. “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.”

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

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

— Katherine Mansfield

87. “The whole world shall be ours because of our love.”

— Katherine Mansfield

88. “The English language is damned difficult, but it’s also damned rich, and so clear and bright that you can search out the darkest places with it.”

— Katherine Mansfield

89. “We are solitary creatures au fond. It hapens so rarely that one feels another understands. But when one does feel it, it’s not only a joy, it’s a help and comfort in dark moments.”

— Katherine Mansfield

90. “I am always conscious of this secret disruption in me.”

— Katherine Mansfield

91. “Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.”

— Katherine Mansfield

92. “Better to write twaddle, anything, than nothing at all.”

— Katherine Mansfield

93. “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.”

— Katherine Mansfield

94. “You have never been curious about me; you never wanted to explore my soul.”

— Katherine Mansfield

95. “You know the feeling that a great writer gives you: my spirit has been fed and refreshed; it has partaken of something new.”

— Katherine Mansfield

96. “I’m a writer first and a woman after.”

— Katherine Mansfield

97. “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.”

— Katherine Mansfield

98. “To long for everything: sorrow; to accept everything: joy.”

— Katherine Mansfield

99. “EM Forster never gets any further than warming the tea pot... Is it not beautifully warm? Yes, but there ain’t going to be no tea.”

— Katherine Mansfield

100. “I used to believe I was merely words and I do not know whether I shall start hoping for something more. You planted that sense of hope in a secret deeply hidden place; it had walls made of bricks and huge abandoned gardens full of despair. It was covered in dusty waves and it was kept underground where no soul would ever walk. And you walked there – you planted hope. And now I cannot imagine myself without it.”

— Katherine Mansfield