"Why does it 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 day light one."
―Katherine Mansfield, “At the Bay”
―Katherine Mansfield, “At the Bay”
"Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order."
―Katherine Mansfield
―Katherine Mansfield
"What do you want most to do? That’s what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties."
―Katherine Mansfield
―Katherine Mansfield
"Would you not like to try all sorts of lives - one is so very small - but that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people."
―Katherine Mansfield
―Katherine Mansfield
"The mind I love most must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind."
―Katherine Mansfield, The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks
―Katherine Mansfield, The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks
"I think of you often. Especially in the evenings, when I am on the balcony and it’s too dark to write or to do anything but wait for the stars. A time I love. One feels half disembodied, sitting like a shadow at the door of one’s being while the dark tide rises. Then comes the moon, marvellously serene, and small stars, very merry for some reason of their own. It is so easy to forget, in a worldly life, to attend to these miracles."
―Katherine Mansfield, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume 1: 1903-1917
―Katherine Mansfield, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume 1: 1903-1917
"I am a recluse at present & do nothing but write & read & read & write."
―Katherine Mansfield, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume 1: 1903-1917
―Katherine Mansfield, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume 1: 1903-1917
"When we begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them."
―Katherine Mansfield
―Katherine Mansfield
"I adore Life. What do all the fools matter and all the stupidity. They do matter but somehow for me they cannot touch the body of Life. Life is marvellous. I want to be deeply rooted in it - to live - to expand - to breathe in it - to rejoice - to share it. To give and to be asked for Love."
―Katherine Mansfield
―Katherine Mansfield
"I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future plusses."
―Katherine Mansfield
―Katherine Mansfield
"The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody’s fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind."
―Katherine Mansfield
―Katherine Mansfield
"I’m treating you as a friend asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future pluses."
―Katherine Mansfield
―Katherine Mansfield
"… warm, eager, living life - to learn, to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want and nothing else."
―Katherine Mansfield
―Katherine Mansfield
"I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face."
―Katherine Mansfield
―Katherine Mansfield
