Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield
Kathleen Mansfield Murrywas a prominent New Zealand modernist short story writer who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. At 19, Mansfield left New Zealand and settled in the United Kingdom, where she became a friend of modernist writers such as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. In 1917 she was diagnosed with extrapulmonary tuberculosis, which led to her death at the age of 34...
NationalityNew Zealander
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth14 October 1888
party flower garden
roses are the only flowers at garden-parties; the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing.
writing people effort
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.
real hate writing
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.
life-is natural
That's all life is - something childish and very natural. Isn't it?
class sense-of-humor middle
Why! Why! Why is the middle-class so stodgy - so utterly without a sense of humor?
work believe passion
I don't believe other people are ever as foolishly excited as I am while I'm working. How could they be? Writers would have to live in trees.
stars regret sunset
I love the evening star. Does that sound foolish? I used to go into the backyard, after sunset, and wait for it until it shone above the dark gum tree. I used to whisper 'There you are, my darling.' And just in that first moment it seemed to be shining for me alone. It seemed to understand this ... something which is like longing, and yet it is not longing. Or regret - it is more like regret.
want faces asking
What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties.
success attitude aspect
There are in life as many aspects as attitudes towards it, and aspects change with attitudes.
happiness eye hands
Ah, what happiness it is to be with people who are all happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes.
regret waste wasting-time
Regret is an appalling waste of time.
real play cities
I am going to enjoy life in Paris I know. It is so human and there is something noble in the city... It is a real city, old and fine and life plays in it for everybody to see.
matter darling said
Isn't life,' she stammered, 'isn't life--' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood. 'Isn't it, darling?' said Laurie.
alive enough
To be alive and to be a ‘writer’ is enough.