Katherine Mansfield
I saw myself driving through Eternity in a timeless taxi.Collection: Saws
Children are unaccountable little creatures.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Live Life
I feel I must live alone, alone, alone - with artists only to touch the door. Every artist cuts off his ear and nails it on the outside of the door for the others to shout into.Collection: Cutting
... I'd always rather be with people who loved me too little rather than with people who loved me too much.Collection: People
we cling to our last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves.Collection: Tree
Wind moving through grass so that the grass quivers. This moves me with an emotion I don't even understand.Collection: Moving
Tidied all my papers. Tore up and ruthlessly destroyed much. This is always a great satisfaction.Collection: Order
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.Collection: Fun
I think I hate snow, downright hate it. There is something stupefying in it, a kind of 'You must be worse before you're better,' and down it spins.Collection: Hate
The ostrich burying its head in the sand does at any rate wish to convey the impression that its head is the most important part of it.Collection: Ostriches
Courage is like a disobedient dog, once it starts running away it flies all the faster for your attempts to recall it.Collection: Running
I love this place; I love mountains and big skies and forests. And the weather is still supremely beautiful even though the lower peaks are powdered with fresh snow. But Heavens! What sun. It never has an ending. I am basking at this minute - half past four - too hot without a hat, & the sky is that transparent blue only to be seen in autumn - the forest trees steeped in light.Collection: Beautiful
Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to be a writer can afford to indulge in it.Collection: Regret
Winter is a terrible time for thin people - terrible! Why should it hound them down, fasten on them, worry them so? Why not, for a change, take a nip, take a snap at the fat ones who wouldn't notice? But no! It is sleek, warm, cat-like summer that makes the fat one's life a misery. Winter is all for bones.Collection: Summer
Regret is an appalling waste of time.Collection: Regret
It is strange that there are times when I feel the stars are not at all solemn: they are secretly gay.Collection: Stars
That is the fearful part of having been near death. One knows how easy it is to die. The barriers that are up for everybody else are down for you, and you've only to slip through.Collection: Easy
It’s rather nice to think of oneself as a sailor bending over the map of one’s mind and deciding where to go and how to go. The great thing to remember is we can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough.Collection: Strong
The truth is that every true admirer of the novels cherishes the happy thought that he alone – reading between the lines – has bcome the secret friend of their author.Collection: Reading
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.Collection: Fun
I’m a writer first and a woman after.Collection: Firsts