Why does one 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 daylight one.

— Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Quotes

You’re not very fond of your room by day. You never think about it. You’re in and out, the door opens and slams, the cupboard creaks. You sit down on the side of your bed, change your shoes and dash out again. A dive down to the glass, two pins in your hair, powder your nose and off again. But now–at night time- it’s suddenly dear to you. It’s a darling little funny room. It’s yours. Oh, what a joy it is to own things!

— Katherine Mansfield

I have faded into the habit of secretly existing under your skin. It is unbelievably dark under there; I am happy.

— Katherine Mansfield

Last night I spent in her arms – and tonight I hate her – which being interpreted, means that I adore her; that I cannot lie in my bed and not feel the magic of her body. I feel more powerfully all those so-termed sexual impulses with her than I have with any man. She enthrals, enslaves me – and her personal self – her body absolute – is my worship.

— Katherine Mansfield

I thought how true it was that the world was a delightful place if it were not for the people, and how more than true it was that people were not worth troubling about, and that wise men should set their affections upon nothing smaller than cities, heavenly or otherwise, and countrysides which are always heavenly.

— Katherine Mansfield

Laura’s upbringing made her wonder for a moment whether it was quite respectful of a workman to talk to her of bangs slap in the eye. But she did quite follow him.

— Katherine Mansfield

Well, Mr. Arnold, here’s Mrs. Hammond at last!” The manager led them through the hall himself and pressed the elevator-bell. Hammond knew there were business pals of his sitting at the little hall tables having a drink before dinner. But he wasn’t going to risk interruption; he looked neither to the right nor the left.

— Katherine Mansfield

The smell of leaves and wet black earth mingled with the sharp smell of the sea.

— Katherine Mansfield

My love, my sweet love, I live in another world. A kinder and simpler world. A world of moons and stars and forests, a world filled with danger and magical beauty. It’s the old world but to me it’s new. You must not be fearful, dear, I quite like it there.

— Katherine Mansfield

Even the photographs were on the mantelpiece and the medicine bottles on the shelf above the wash-stand. Her clothes lay across a chair – her outdoor things, a purple cape and a round hat with a plume in it. Looking at them she wished that she was going away from this house, too. And she saw herself driving away from them all in a little buggy, driving away from everybody and not even waving.

— Katherine Mansfield

The breeze of morning lifted in the bush and the smell of leaves and wet black earth mingled with the sharp smell of the sea. Myriads of birds were singing. A goldfinch flew over the shepherd’s head and, perching on the tiptop of a spray, it turned to the sun, ruffling its small breast feathers. And now they had passed the fisherman’s hut, passed the charred-looking lit.

— Katherine Mansfield

Delighted of course. It will only be a very scratch meal – just the sandwich crusts and broken meringue-shells and what’s left over. Yes, isn’t it a perfect morning?

— Katherine Mansfield

When Harry came I had his letters all ready, and the ring and a ducky little brooch he’d given me – a silver bird it was, with a chain in its beak, and on the end of the chain a heart with a dagger.

— Katherine Mansfield

Do you ever want to hide, to be completely hidden so that nobody knows where you are. Sometimes one has a dreadful feeling of exposure–it’s intolerable. I mustn’t say these things.

— Katherine Mansfield

It was her peculiar curse to never really be unknown.

— Katherine Mansfield

The late afternoon sun shone on women in cotton frocks and little sunburnt, barefoot children. It blazed on a silky yellow flower with coarse leaves which sprawled over a bank of rock. The air ruffling through the window smelled of the sea.

— Katherine Mansfield

Yes, madam, it was all left to me. Oh, she did look sweet. I did her hair, soft-like, round her forehead, all in dainty.

— Katherine Mansfield

But my anxious heart is eating up my body, eating up my nerves, eating up my brain. I feel this poison slowly filling my veins – every particle becoming slowly tainted... I am never, never calm, never for an instant.

— Katherine Mansfield

But the pear tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower and as still.

— Katherine Mansfield

I am tired, blissfully tired. Do you suppose that daisies feel blissfully tired when they shut for the night and the dews descend upon them?

— Katherine Mansfield

And I feel as I always do that Autumn is loveliest of all. There is such a sharpness with the sweetness –.

— Katherine Mansfield
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