Susannah Mansfield Quotes

“Do try The House by fresh new author, Susannah Mansfield, it's funny, sad and very different, you'll love the characters and the stories.”

“I'd rather be the one making mistakes than the one laughing at someone making mistakes, for that laughing person is a wimp." ~ Denise Mansfield Bradberry.”

“I love to close my eyes a moment and think of the land outside, white under the mingled snow and moonlight--the heaps of stones by the roadside white--snow in the furrows. Mon Dieu! How quiet and how patient!”

“Saw the sun rise. A lovely apricot sky with flames in it and then solemn pink. Heavens, how beautiful...I feel so full of love to-day after having seen the sun rise.”

“Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others ... Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth."(Journal entry, 14 October 1922)”

“Much was said, and much was ate, and all went well.”

“Maria was married on Saturday. In all important preparations of mind she was complete, being prepared for matrimony by a hatred of home, by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. The bride was elegantly dressed and the two bridesmaids were duly inferior. Her mother stood with salts, expecting to be agitated, and her aunt tried to cry. Marriage is indeed a maneuvering business.”

“I sometimes wonder whether the act of surrender is not one of the greatest of all - the highest. It is one of the [most] difficult of all... You see it's so immensely complicated. It needs real humility and at the same time, an absolute belief in one's own essential freedom. It is an act of faith. At the last moments, like all great acts, it is pure risk. This is true for me as a human being and as a writer. Dear Heaven, how hard it is to let go - to step into the blue. And yet one's creative life depends on it and one desires to do nothing else.”

“The mind I love most must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.”

“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.”