234 Quotes by Katherine Mansfield

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

Last night I spent in her arms – and tonight I hate her – which being interpreted, means that I adore her; that I cannot lie in my bed and not feel the magic of her body. I feel more powerfully all those so-termed sexual impulses with her than I have with any man. She enthrals, enslaves me – and her personal self – her body absolute – is my worship.

What did garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all those things. He was wonderful, beautiful.

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.

What do you want most to do? That’s what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties.

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.

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.

Don’t forget that dragons are only guardians of treasures and one fights them for what they keep – not for themselves...

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.