Katherine Mansfield Details

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.

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.