234 Quotes by Katherine Mansfield

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

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.

What I feel for you can’t be conveyed in phrasal combinations; It either screams out loud or stays painfully silent but I promise — it beats words. It beats worlds. I promise

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

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.

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.

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.

I want so to live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I want to be writing (Though I may write about cabmen. That’s no matter.) But warm, eager, living life — to be rooted in life — to learn, to desire, to feel, to think, to act. This is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.

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