Katherine Mansfield Quotes

by Charlotte Reads Classics

A cloud, small, serene, floated across the moon. In that moment of darkness the sea sounded deep, troubled. Then the cloud sailed away, and the sound of the sea was a vague murmur, as though it waked out of a dark dream. All was still.
Selected Stories, ‘At the Bay’

He could not have done with the little poem. It was not the words so much as the whole air of it that charmed him! He might have written it lying in bed, very early in the morning, and watching the sun dance on the ceiling. ‘It is still, like that,’ thought Henry. ‘I am sure he wrote it when he was half-awake some time, for it’s got a smile of a dream on it.’
Selected Stories, ’Something Childish but very Natural’

An old woman sat opposite, her skirt turned back over her knees, a bonnet of black lace on her head. In her fat hands, adorned with a wedding and two mourning rings, she held a letter. Slowly, slowly she sipped a sentence, and then looked up and out of the window, her lips trembling a little, and then another sentence, and again the old face turned to the light, tasting it….
Selected Stories, ‘An Indiscreet Journey’