Home / Authors / Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Quotes

Writer

Katherine Mansfield was a New Zealand-born British writer renowned for her short stories. Her work is celebrated for its concise, direct style and profound insight into the details of everyday life. Although her writing career was brief, her influence on literature has been profound.

Filter quotes by topic

All Want Feels Writing Ifs Knows People Littles Love Sun Doe Earth Light Regret Thinking Tree Wish Dark Faces Friendship Inspirational

Famous Katherine Mansfield Quotes

“I sometimes wonder whether the act of surrender is not one of the greatest of all - the highest. It is one of the [most] difficult of all... You see it's so immensely complicated. It needs real humility and at the same time, an absolute belief in one's own essential freedom. It is an act of faith. At the last moments, like all great acts, it is pure risk. This is true for me as a human being and as a writer. Dear Heaven, how hard it is to let go - to step into the blue. And yet one's creative life depends on it and one desires to do nothing else.”

Writing Faith Freedom Creativity Risk Humility Surrender

Book:Letters and Journals

Source: Letters and Journals

“Why it should be such an effort to write to the people one loves I can't imagine. It's none at all to write to those who don't really count.”

People Should Writing I Can Effort Imagine Letters One Love

Book:The Katherine Mansfield notebooks

Source: The Katherine Mansfield notebooks

“Letters are the real curse of my existence. I hate to write them: I have to. If I don't, there they are - the great guilty gates barring my way.”

Ifs Way Writing Real Hate Existence Letters I Hate Guilty My Way Curse Gates

Book:The Katherine Mansfield notebooks

Source: The Katherine Mansfield notebooks

“The late evening is the time of times. Then with that unearthly beauty before one it is not hard to realise how far one has to go. To write something that will be worthy of that rising moon, that pale light.”

Writing Hard Light Moon Late Worthy Evening Rising Realising Pale

Book:The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield

Source: The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield

“Better to write twaddle, anything, than nothing at all.”

Author: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.”

People Writing Trying Satisfaction Impersonate

Book:The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1922-1923

Source: The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1922-1923

“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.”

Writing Bigs Light Would Be Heaven Rooms Tree Late Green Series Evening

Book:The Katherine Mansfield notebooks

Source: The Katherine Mansfield notebooks

“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.”

Thinking Want Feels Writing Trying May Book Matter Feelings Hands Desire House Animal Brain Expression Garden Warm Live Life Grass Rooted

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)

“I am a recluse at present & do nothing but write & read & read & write”

Writing Recluse

Book:The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1903-1917

Source: The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1903-1917

“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.”

Source: The Letters of Katherine Mansfield

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

Writing Imagine Looking Back

Author:Katherine Mansfield