01UndatedRisk 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)Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
02UndatedA big bee, a golden furry fellow, crept into a freesia, and the delicate flower leaned over, swung, shook; and when the bee flew away it fluttered still as though it were laughing. Happy, careless flower!Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
03UndatedIsn't life,' she stammered, 'isn't life--' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood.'Isn't it, darling?' said Laurie.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
04UndatedI can never be perfectly certain whether Helen was got with child by Leonard Bast or by his fatal forgotten umbrella. All things considered, I think it must have been the umbrella.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
05UndatedTo acknowledge the presence of fear is to give birth to failure.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
06UndatedI 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.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
07UndatedI do not know why I have such a fancy for this little café. It's dirty and sad, sad. It's not as if it had anything to distinguish it from a hundred others–it hasn't; or as if the same strange types came here every day, whom one could watch from one's corner and recognize and more or less (with a strong accent on the less) get the hang of.But pray don't imagine that those brackets are a confession of my humility before the mystery of the human soul. Not at all; I don't believe in the human soul. I never have. 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 / quote ↗
08UndatedI thought how true it was that the world was a delightful place if it were not for the people, and how more than true it was that people were not worth troubling about, and that wise men should set their affections upon nothing smaller than cities, heavenly or otherwise, and countrysides which are always heavenly.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
09UndatedEverything 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 / quote ↗
10UndatedEverything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering must become Love. That is the mystery.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
11UndatedSaw 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 / quote ↗
12UndatedThe 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.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
13UndatedThe mind I love most 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 fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
14UndatedI sometimes wonder whether the act of surrender is not one of the greatest of all - the highest. It is one of the [most] difficult of all... You see it's so immensely complicated. It needs real humility and at the same time, an absolute belief in one's own essential freedom. It is an act of faith. At the last moments, like all great acts, it is pure risk. This is true for me as a human being and as a writer. Dear Heaven, how hard it is to let go - to step into the blue. And yet one's creative life depends on it and one desires to do nothing else.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
15Undated…Oh dear, I sometimes think…whatever would I do if anything happened…But thinking's no good, is it, madam? Thinking won't help. When I find myself doing that, I say to myself, "come along, Ellen! Stop it this moment, my girl! Stop that silly thinking…!Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
16UndatedCould we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change of attitude.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
18UndatedI love to close my eyes a moment and think of the land outside, white under the mingled snow and moonlight--the heaps of stones by the roadside white--snow in the furrows. Mon Dieu! How quiet and how patient!Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
19UndatedSleeping was her latest discovery. 'It's so wonderful. One simply shuts one's eyes, that's all. It's so delicious.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
20UndatedThere 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 / quote ↗
21UndatedAh, what happiness it is to be with people who are all happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
23UndatedThe 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.Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
24UndatedYou have only to say one word and I would know your voice among all other voices. I don't know what it is - I've often wondered - that makes your voice such a - haunting memory. . . . Do you remember that first afternoon we spent together at Kew Gardens? You were so surprised because I did not know the names of any flowers. I am still just as ignorant for all your telling me. But whenever it is very fine and warm, and I see some bright colours - it's awfully strange - I hear your voice saying : "Geranium, marigold and verbena." And I feel those three words are all I recall of some forgotten, heavenly language. . . .Katherine Mansfield / quote ↗
