234 Quotes by Katherine Mansfield

You’re not very fond of your room by day. You never think about it. You’re in and out, the door opens and slams, the cupboard creaks. You sit down on the side of your bed, change your shoes and dash out again. A dive down to the glass, two pins in your hair, powder your nose and off again. But now–at night time- it’s suddenly dear to you. It’s a darling little funny room. It’s yours. Oh, what a joy it is to own things!

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...

My love, my sweet love, I live in another world. A kinder and simpler world. A world of moons and stars and forests, a world filled with danger and magical beauty. It’s the old world but to me it’s new. You must not be fearful, dear, I quite like it there.

The breeze of morning lifted in the bush and the smell of leaves and wet black earth mingled with the sharp smell of the sea. Myriads of birds were singing. A goldfinch flew over the shepherd’s head and, perching on the tiptop of a spray, it turned to the sun, ruffling its small breast feathers. And now they had passed the fisherman’s hut, passed the charred-looking lit.

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.

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

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.

Why does one feel so different at night? Why is it so exciting to be awake when everybody else is asleep? Late – it is very late! And yet every moment you feel more and more wakeful, as though you were slowly, almost with every breath, waking up into a new, wonderful, far more thrilling and exciting world than the daylight one.

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.