Katherine Mansfield on writing

Suppose we put it in the form of a riddle: ‘I am neither a short story, nor a sketch, nor an impression, nor a tale. I am written in prose. I am a great deal shorter than a novel; I may be only one page long, but, on the other hand, there is no reason why I should not be thirty. I have a special quality - a something, a something which is immediately, perfectly recognizable. It belongs to me; it is of my essence. In fact I am often given away in the first sentence. I seem almost to stand or fall by it. It is to me what the first phrase of the song is to the singer. Those who know me feel: ‘Yes, that is it.' And they are from that moment prepared for what is to follow. Here are, for instance, some examples of me: ‘A Trifle from Life', ‘About Love', ‘The Lady with the Dog'. What am I?
(1920)

Very often, after reading a modern novel, the question suggests itself; why was it written?....We cannot help wondering, when the book is finished and laid by, as to the nature of that mysterious compulsion. It is terrifying to think of the number of novels that are written and announced and published and to be had of all libraries, and reviewed and bought and borrowed and read, and left in hotel lounges and omnibuses and railway carriages and deck chairs....
(1919)