234 Quotes by Katherine Mansfield

Regret is an appalling waste of energy, you can't build on it - it's only good for wallowing in.

Could 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 in attitude.

In the daytime when sweeping and dusting and cleaning were quite at an end, he would sit very still on the doorstep.

In an opal dream cave I found a fairy: / Her wings were frailer than flower petals, / Frailer far than snowflakes. / She was not frightened, but poised on my finger, / Then delicately walked into my hand. / I shut the two palms of my hands together / And held her prisoner. / I carried her out of the opal cave, / Then opened my hands. / First she became thistledown, / Then a mote in a sunbeam, / Then--nothing at all. / Empty now is my opal dream cave.

Now I am a plant, a weed, / Bending and swinging / On a rocky ledge; / And now I am a long brown grass / Fluttering like flame; / I am a reed; / An old shell singing / For ever the same; / A drift of sedge; / A white, white stone; / A bone; / Until I pass / Into sand again, / And spin and blow / To and fro, to and fro, / On the edge of the sea / In the fading light-- / For the light fades.

Bless you, my darling, and remember you are always in the heart ...of your sister.

The men walked like scissors; the women trod like cats.

We whirl along like leaves, and nobody knows, nobody cares where we fall.

But childhood prolonged cannot remain a fairyland. It becomes a hell.