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Looking Back, I Imagine I Was Always Writing. Twaddle It Was Too. But Better Far Write Twaddle Or Anything, Anything, Than Nothing At All.

-Katherine Mansfield

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Looking Back, I Imagine

Katherine Mansfield

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Looking Back, I Imagine I Was Always Writing. Twaddle It Was Too. But Better Far Write Twaddle Or Anything, Anything, Than Nothing At All.

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Tidied All My Papers. Tore Up And Ruthlessly Destroyed Much. This Is Always A Great Satisfaction.

What Can You Do If You Are Thirty And, Turning The Corner Of Your Own Street, You Are Overcome, Suddenly, By A Feeling Of Bliss - Absolute Bliss - As Though You'd Suddenly Swallowed A Bright Piece Of That Late Afternoon Sun And It Burned In Your Bosom, Sending Out A Little Shower Of Sparks Into Every Particle Into Every Finger And Toe?

Warm, Eager, Living Life-to Be Rooted In Life-to Learn, To Desire, To Know, To Feel, To Think, To Act. This Is What I Want. And Nothing Less. That Is What I Must Try For.

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.

Bless You, My Darling, And Remember You Are Always In The Heart - Oh Tucked So Close There Is No Chance Of Escape - Of Your Sister.

The Great Thing To Remember Is We Can Do Whatever We Wish To Do Provided Our Wish Is Strong Enough.

That Is The Fearful Part Of Having Been Near Death. One Knows How Easy It Is To Die. The Barriers That Are Up For Everybody Else Are Down For You, And You've Only To Slip Through.

What Is It With Me? Am I Absolutely Nobody, But Merely Inordinately Vain? I Do Not Know…. But I Am Most Fearfully Unhappy. That Is All. I Am So Unhappy That I Wish I Was Dead—yet I Should Be Mad To Die When I Have Not Yet Lived At All.

If Only One Could Tell True Love From False Love As One Can Tell Mushrooms From Toadstools. With Mushrooms It Is So Simple - You Salt Them Well, Put Them Aside And Have Patience. But With Love, You Have No Sooner Lighted On Anything That Bears Even The Remotest Resemblance To It Than You Are Perfectly Certain It Is Not Only A Genuine Specimen, But Perhaps The Only Genuine Mushroom Ungathered.

Looking Back, I Imagine I Was Always Writing. Twaddle It Was Too. But Better Far Write Twaddle Or Anything, Anything, Than Nothing At All.

It Is Of Immense Importance To Learn To Laugh At Ourselves.

What I Feel For You Can’t Be Conveyed In Phrasal Combinations; It Either Screams Out Loud Or Stays Painfully Silent But I Promise — It Beats Words. It Beats Worlds. I Promise

I Always Felt That The Great High Privilege, Relief And Comfort Of Friendship Was That One Had To Explain Nothing.

Every Time One Leaves Anywhere, Something Precious, Which Ought Not To Be Killed, Is Left To Die.

There Is No Feeling To Be Compared With The Feeling Of Having Written And Finished A Story.

By Health I Mean The Power To Live A Full, Adult, Living, Breathing Life In Close Contact With... The Earth And The Wonders Thereof - The Sea - The Sun.

As In The Physical World, So In The Spiritual World, Pain Does Not Last Forever.

What Do You Want Most To Do? That's What I Have To Keep Asking Myself, In The Face Of Difficulties.

The Fields Are Snowbound No Longer; There Are Little Blue Lakes And Flags Of Tenderest Green. The Snow Has Been Caught Up Into The Sky- So Many White Clouds-and The Blue Of The Sky Is Cold. Now The Sun Walks In The Forest, He Touches The Bows And Stems With His Golden Fingers; They Shiver, And Wake From Slumber. Over The Barren Branches He Shakes His Yellow Curls. Yet Is The Forest Full Of The Sound Of Tears.... A Wind Dances Over The Fields. Shrill And Clear The Sound Of Her Waking Laughter, Yet The Little Blue Lakes Tremble And The Flags Of Tenderest Green Bend And Quiver.

In The Woods Where Snow Is Thick, Bars Of Sunlight Lay Like Pale Fire.

Better To Write Twaddle, Anything, Than Nothing At All.

To Acknowledge The Presence Of Fear Is To Give Birth To Failure.

Conversation Is Like A Dear Little Baby That Is Brought In To Be Handed Round. You Must Rock It, Nurse It, Keep It On The Move If You Want It To Keep Smiling.

The Whole World Shall Be Ours Because Of Our Love.

My Love For You Tonight Is So Deep And Tender That It Seems To Be Outside Myself As Well.

My Love For You

The Truth Is That Every True Admirer Of The Novels Cherishes The Happy Thought That He Alone - Reading Between The Lines - Has Bcome The Secret Friend Of Their Author.

Wind Moving Through Grass So That The Grass Quivers. This Moves Me With An Emotion I Don't Even Understand.

I Love This Place; I Love Mountains And Big Skies And Forests. And The Weather Is Still Supremely Beautiful Even Though The Lower Peaks Are Powdered With Fresh Snow. But Heavens! What Sun. It Never Has An Ending. I Am Basking At This Minute - Half Past Four - Too Hot Without A Hat, & The Sky Is That Transparent Blue Only To Be Seen In Autumn - The Forest Trees Steeped In Light.

I Am Poor - Obscure - Just Eighteen Years Of Age - With A Rapacious Appetite For Everything And Principles As Light As My Purse.

But One Day We Shall Be Rich, And The Next Poor. One Day We Shall Dine In A Palace And The Next We'll Sit In A Forest And Toast Mushrooms On A Hatpin.

I'm A Writer First And A Woman After.

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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.

How Hard It Is To Escape From Places. However Carefully One Goes They Hold You — You Leave Little Bits Of Yourself Fluttering On The Fences — Like Rags And Shreds Of Your Very Life.

Roses Are The Only Flowers At Garden-parties; The Only Flowers That Everybody Is Certain Of Knowing.

How Idiotic Civilization Is! Why Be Given A Body If You Have To Keep It Shut Up In A Case Like A Rare, Rare Fiddle?

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.

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Risk! Risk Anything! Care No More For The Opinions Of Others, For Those Voices. Do The Hardest Thing On Earth For You. Act For Yourself. Face The Truth.

Regret Is An Appalling Waste Of Energy, And No One Who Intends To Be A Writer Can Afford To Indulge In It.

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Could We Change Our Attitude, We Should Not Only See Life Differently, But Life Itself Would Come To Be Different.

I Think I Hate Snow, Downright Hate It. There Is Something Stupefying In It, A Kind Of 'you Must Be Worse Before You're Better,' And Down It Spins.

Regret Is An Appalling Waste Of Time.

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The Ostrich Burying Its Head In The Sand Does At Any Rate Wish To Convey The Impression That Its Head Is The Most Important Part Of It.

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I Love The Night. I Love To Feel The Tide Of Darkness Rising, Slowly And Slowly Washing, Turning Over And Over, Lifting, Floating, All That Lies Strewn Upon The Dark Beach, All That Lies Hid In Rocky Hollows.

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There Are In Life As Many Aspects As Attitudes Towards It, And Aspects Change With Attitudes.

When I Say "i Fear" - Don't Let It Disturb You, Dearest Heart. We All Fear When We Are In Waiting-rooms. Yet We Must Pass Beyond Them, And If The Other Can Keep Calm, It Is All The Help We Can Give Each Other.

Courage Is Like A Disobedient Dog, Once It Starts Running Away It Flies All The Faster For Your Attempts To Recall It.

You Might Drop Your Heart Into Me And You'd Never Hear It Touch Bottom.

England Is Merely An Island Of Beef Swimming In A Warm Gulf Stream Of Gravy.

In Fact, Isn't It A Joy - There Is Hardly A Greater One - To Find A New Book, A Living Book, And To Know That It Will Remain With You While Life Lasts?

That's All Life Is - Something Childish And Very Natural. Isn't It?

Once We Have Learned To Read, Meaning Of Words Can Somehow Register Without Consciousness.

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.

Now's The Time When Children's Noses All Become As Red As Roses And The Colour Of Their Faces Makes Me Think Of Orchard Places Where The Juicy Apples Grow, And Tomatoes In A Row.

Do The Hardest Thing On Earth For You. Act Yourself.

There Are Always These Moments In Life When The Limits Of Suffering Are Reached And We Become Heroes And Heroines.

What Happiness It Is To Listen To Rain At Night; Joyful Relief, Ease; A Lapping-round And Hushing And Brooding Tenderness, All Are Mingled Together In The Sound Of The Fast-falling Rain. God, Looking Down Upon The Rainy Earth, Sees How Faint Are These Lights Shining In Little Windows, - How Easily Put Out.

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I Want, By Understanding Myself, To Understand Others.

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Children Are Unaccountable Little Creatures.

I Want To Be All That I Am Capable Of Becoming.

We Can Do Whatever We Wish To Do Provided Our Wish Is Strong Enough. But The Tremendous Effort Needed- One Doesn't Always Want To Make It-does One? ... But What Else Can Be Done? What's The Alternative? What Do You Want Most To Do? That's What I Have To Keep Asking Myself, In The Face Of Difficulties.

You Are A Queen. Let Mine Be The Joy Of Giving You Your Kingdom.

Make It A Rule Of Life Never To Regret And Never To Look Back. Regret Is An Appalling Waste Of Energy, You Can't Build On It It's Only Good For Wallowing In.

If Only One Could Tell True Love From False Love As One Can Tell Mushrooms From Toadstools.

If You Wish To Live, You Must First Attend Your Own Funeral.

The Mind I Love Must Have Wild Places.

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.

It Is Strange That There Are Times When I Feel The Stars Are Not At All Solemn: They Are Secretly Gay.

To Long For Everything: Sorrow; To Accept Everything: Joy.

Can One Do Nothing For The Dead? And For A Long Time The Answer Had Been - Nothing!

If One Really Does Try To Find Out Why It Is That People Don't Leave Each Other, One Discovers A Mystery. It Is Because They Can't; They Are Bound. And Nobody On Earth Knows What Are The Bonds That Bind Them Except Those Two.

Oh, Impossible. Fancy Cream Puffs So Soon After Breakfast. The Very Idea Made One Shudder. All The Same, Two Minutes Later Jose And Laura Were Licking Their Fingers With That Absorbed Inward Look That Only Comes From Whipped Cream.

I Saw Myself Driving Through Eternity In A Timeless Taxi.

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.

I Am A Recluse At Present & Do Nothing But Write & Read & Read & Write

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.

In The Shortest Sea Voyage There Is No Sense Of Time. You Have Been Down In The Cabin For Hours Or Days Or Years. Nobody Knows Or Cares. You Know All The People To The Point Of Indifference. You Do Not Believe In Dry Land Any More - You Are Caught In The Pendulum Itself, And Left There, Idly Swinging.

It's Rather Nice To Think Of Oneself As A Sailor Bending Over The Map Of One's Mind And Deciding Where To Go And How To Go. The Great Thing To Remember Is We Can Do Whatever We Wish To Do Provided Our Wish Is Strong Enough.

There Does Seem To Me Something Sad In Life. It Is Hard To Say What It Is. I Don't Mean The Sorrow That We All Know, Like Illness And Poverty And Death. No, It Is Something Different. It Is There, Deep Down, Deep Down, Part Of One, Like One's Breathing.

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.

Winter Is A Terrible Time For Thin People - Terrible! Why Should It Hound Them Down, Fasten On Them, Worry Them So? Why Not, For A Change, Take A Nip, Take A Snap At The Fat Ones Who Wouldn't Notice? But No! It Is Sleek, Warm, Cat-like Summer That Makes The Fat One's Life A Misery. Winter Is All For Bones.

Why! Why! Why Is The Middle-class So Stodgy - So Utterly Without A Sense Of Humor?

But The More Poetry One Reads The More One Longs To Read!

Some Couples Go Over Their Budgets Very Carefully Every Month. Others Just Go Over Them.

Who Is To Decide Between 'let It Be' And 'force It'?

Outside The Sky Is Light With Stars

Ah, What Happiness It Is To Be With People Who All Are Happy, To Press Hands, Press Cheeks, Smile Into Eyes.

Everything In Life That We Really Accept Undergoes A Change.

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