The quotations of

Katherine Mansfield

New Zealand author

1888–1923

5 quotes.

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.
Entry in her journal (10 October 1922) which she tore out to send to John Middleton Murry, before changing her mind
- Health
- Nature
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.
Letter to her future husband, John Middleton Murry (July 1917), from The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, vol. I
- Advice
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.
Journal entry (29 January 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)
- Life & Death
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.
Journal entry (October 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)
- Failure
- Laughter
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.
Letter to S. S. Koteliansky, as quoted in “Always my thoughts & feelings go back to New Zealand” by Vincent O’Sullivan, in NZ Listener Vol 214 No 3556, (July 5-11 2008)

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