Katherine Mansfield

"[On 2 June] I lunched with K.M. & had 2 hours priceless talk—priceless in the sense that to no one else can I talk in the same disembodied way about writing; without altering my thought more than I alter it in writing here."

"Were we positive, eager, real — alive? No, we were not. We were a nothingness shot with gleams of what might be."

"When we can begin to take our failures nonseriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves."

"Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth."

"By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love — the earth and the wonders thereof — the sea — the sun, all that we mean when we speak of the external world. I want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious, direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others."

"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."

"When I say "I fear" — don't let it disturb you, dearest heart. We all fear when we are in waiting-rooms. Yet we must pass beyond them, and if the other can keep calm, it is all the help we can give each other."

"This all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it's no longer so. I feel happy — deep down. May you be happy too. I'm going to Fontainebleau on Monday and I'll be back here Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. All is well."

"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 of attitude."

"I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing."

"The world to me is a dream and the people in it are sleepers. I have known a few instances of intensity but that is all. I want to find a world in which these instances are united. Shall I succeed? I scarcely care. What is important is to try & learn to live, and in relation to everything – not isolated. This isolation is death to me."

"I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope I can ask you to share my future pluses."

"Once we have learned to read, the meaning of words can somehow register without consciousness."

"Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month. Others just go over them."

"The more you are motivated by love, the more fearless and free your actions will be."

"I want to recall her as she was day by day as a woman friend and neighbour, gay and gallant and wonderful."

"If I had to describe her in one word I would choose the word exquisite. She was exquisite in her person: soft, fine, shiny brown hair and delicately grained skin, not tall and not small and not thin nor stout, just right. When we went bathing I thought her pretty as a statuette. She was always scrupulously groomed."

"I think that in some abstruse way Murry corrupted and perverted and destroyed Katherine both as a person and a writer. She was a very serious writer, but her gifts were those of an intense realist, with a superb sense of ironic humour and fundamental cynicism. She got enmeshed in the sticky sentimentality of Murry and wrote against the grain of her own nature. At the bottom of her mind she knew this, I think, and it enraged her. And that was why she was so often enraged against Murry."

"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."

"To acknowledge the presence of fear is to give birth to failure."

"To work — to work! It is such infinite delight to know that we still have the best things to do."

"It's a terrible thing to be alone — yes it is — it is — but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath — as terrible as you like — but a mask."

"If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools. With mushrooms it is so simple — you salt them well, put them aside and have patience. But with love, you have no sooner lighted on anything that bears even the remotest resemblance to it than you are perfectly certain it is not only a genuine specimen, but perhaps the only genuine mushroom ungathered."

"I'm a writer first & a woman after."

"I have made it a rule of my life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to become a writer can afford to indulge in it. You can't get it into shape; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in."

"Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering must become Love. This is the mystery. This is what I must do."

"It's an infernal nuisance to love Life as I do. I seem to love it more as time goes on rather than less. It never becomes a habit to me. It's always a marvel. I do hope I'll be able to keep in it long enough to do some really good work. I'm sick of people dying who promise well."

"Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order. This is what life has taught me."

"The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books."

"Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all."

"By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love — the earth and the wonders thereof — the sea — the sun. All that we mean when we speak of the external world. A want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it’s no good — there’s only one phrase that will do) a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light and so on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be at that. A child of the sun."

"Warm, eager, living life — to be rooted in life — to learn, to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for. … This all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it’s no longer so. I feel happy — deep down. All is well."

"Wir müssen zu unseren Ansichten stehen und es riskieren, um ihretwillen zu Fall zu kommen."

""Wir müssen jeder allein sein"

"Wenn wir anfangen, unser Versagen nicht mehr so ernst zu nehmen, so heißt das, dass wir es nicht mehr fürchten."

"Warum können wir uns nicht in Träumen treffen und uns alle unsere Fragen beantworten?"

""Schreiben: Ein Schrei gegen das Verderben!"

"Nichts kommt dem Landleben gleich. Es vermittelt mehr echte Freuden als irgendeine andere Lebensweise."

"Manchmal befürchte ich, dass es keine Menschen einfachen Gemütes mehr gibt."

"Ich möchte zu Gott beten wie der alte Vater Tolstoi."

"Ich möchte so leben, dass ich sowohl mit den Händen als auch mit dem Gefühl und dem Verstand arbeite."

""Ich mache mir nichts aus Menschen: Und der Gedanke an Ruhm, an Erfolg"

"Hol der Teufel das Briefeschreiben! Wenn wir nur beisammen wären!"

"Es ist von größter Wichtigkeit, dass wir lernen, über uns selbst zu lachen."

""Es ist ungeheuer wertvoll und wunderbar, wenn ich allein bin"

"Ein Haus ist eine Arche, um der Flut zu entrinnen."

"Ehrlichkeit ist das Einzige, was höher steht als Leben, Liebe, Tod, als alles andere. Sie allein ist beständig."

"Das Leben ist fast zu gemein, um ertragen zu werden."

"Am Ende ist die Wahrheit das Einzige, das wert ist, dass man es besitzt: Sie ist aufwühlender als Liebe, freudvoller und leidenschaftlicher. Sie kann einfach nicht versagen."