Tove Jansson Quotes

Можно лежать на мосту и смотреть, как течет вода. Или бегать, или побродить по болоту в красных сапожках, или же свернуться клубочком и слушать, как дождь стучит по крыше. Быть счастливой очень легко.

~ Tove Jansson

We sat talking on a rock. The air was filled with the tang of sea-weed and of something else that could only have been the ocean smell. I felt so happy that I wasn't even afraid it wouldn't last.

~ Tove Jansson

She started thinking about all the euphemisms for death, all the anxious taboos that had always fascinated her. It was too bad you could never have an intelligent discussion on the subject. People were either too young or too old, or else they didn't have time.

~ Tove Jansson

Malander had an idea and was trying to work it out, but it would take him time. Sometimes people never saw things clearly until it was too late and they no longer had the strength to start again. Or else they forgot their idea along the way and didn't even realise that they forgotten.

~ Tove Jansson

Now everything was changed. She walked about with cautious, anxious steps, staring constantly at the ground, on the lookout for things that crept and crawled. Bushes were dangerous, and so were sea grass and rain water. There were little animals everywhere. They could turn up between the covers of a book, flattened and dead, for the fact is that creeping animals, tattered animals, and dead animals are with us all our lives, from beginning to end. Grandmother tried to discuss this with her, to no avail. Irrational terror is so hard to deal with. [p. 136]

~ Tove Jansson

Making a whole is very important. Most people paint things and forget the whole.

~ Tove Jansson

Sophia and Grandmother sat down by the shore to discuss the matter further. It was a pretty day, and the sea was running a long, windless swell. It was on days just like this--dog days--that boats went sailing off all by themselves. Large, alien objects made their way in from sea, certain things sank and others rose, milk soured, and dragonflies danced in desperation. Lizards were not afraid. When the moon came up, red spiders mated on uninhabited skerries, where the rock became an unbroken carpet of tiny, ecstatic spiders.

~ Tove Jansson

He was the owner of the moonlight on the ground, he fell in love with the most beautiful of the trees, he made wreaths of leaves and strung them around his neck.

~ Tove Jansson

The lamp sizzled as it burned. It made everything seem close and safe, a little family circle they all knew and trusted. Outside this circle lay everything that was strange and frightening, and the darkness seemed to reach higher and higher and further and further away, right to the end of the world.

~ Tove Jansson

Then -- they saw the Groke. Everybody saw her. She sat motionless on the sandy path at the bottom of the steps and stared at them with round, expressionless eyes.She was not particularly big and didn't look dangerous either, but your let that she was terribly evil and would wait for ever. And that was awful.Nobody plucked up enough courage to attack. She sat there for a while, and then slid away into the darkness. But where she had been sitting the ground was frozen!

~ Tove Jansson

Passion. As you can see, I've lived quite a long time, which is to say I've been working for quite a long time, which is the same thing. And you know what? In the whole silly business, the only thing that really matters is passion. It comes and it goes. At first it just comes to you free of charge, and you don't understand, and you waste it. And then it becomes a thing to nurture.

~ Tove Jansson

When Mats came in the evenings, they would drink tea in the kitchen while reading their books and talking about them. If Katri came in, they were quiet and waited for her to leave. The back door would close, and Katri would have gone.“Does your sister read our books?” Anna wanted to know.“No. She reads literature.

~ Tove Jansson

All men have parties and are pals who never let each other down. A pal can say terrible things which are forgotten the next day. A pal never forgives, he just forgets, and a woman forgives but never forgets. That's how it is. That's why women aren't allowed to have parties. Being forgiven is very unpleasant.

~ Tove Jansson

I cannot stress enough the perils of your friends marrying or becoming court inventors. One day you are all a society of outlaws, adventurous comrades and companions who will be pushing off somewhere or other when things become tiresome; you have all the world to choose from, just by looking at the map… And then, suddenly, they’re not interested any more. They want to keep warm. They’re afraid of rain. They start collecting big things that can’t fit in a rucksack. They talk only of small things. They don’t like to make sudden decisions and do something contrariwise. Formerly they hoisted sail; now they carpenter little shelves for porcelain mugs.

~ Tove Jansson

Here is the most valuable thing in the whole of Moomin Valley, Groke! Do you know what has grown out of this hat? Raspberry juice and fruit trees, and the most beautiful little self-propelling clouds: the only Hobgoblin's Hat in the world!

~ Tove Jansson

We've decided to wake a miss for you because you are nice. We want a booby as roomful as ours.Everybody had seen the Hobgoblin laugh, but nobody believed he could smile. He was so happy that you could see it all over him -- from his hat to his boots! Without a word he waved his cloak over the grass -- and behold! Once more the garden was filled with a pink light and there on the grass before them lay a twin to the King's Ruby -- the Queen's Ruby.

~ Tove Jansson

Clever of you, Hemul. But, on the other hand, think how lonely the Groke is because nobody likes her, and she hates everybody. The Contents is perhaps the only thing she has. Would you now take that away from her too -- lonely and rejected in the night? Sniff became more and more affected and his voice trembled. Cheated out of her only possession by Thingumy and Bob. He blew his nose and couldn't go on.

~ Tove Jansson

The Groke looked at the hat. Then she looked at Thingumy and Bob. Then she looked at the hat again. You could see that she was thinking with all her might. Then suddenly she snatched the hat and, without a word, slithered like ann icy grey shadow into the forest. It was the last time she was seen in the Valley of the Moomins, and the last they saw of the Hobgoblin's Hat, too. At once the colors became warmer again and the garden was filled with the sounds and scents of summer.

~ Tove Jansson

Nothing can be as peaceful and endless as a long winter darkness, going on and on, like living in a tunnel where the dark sometimes deepens into night and sometimes eases to twilight, you're screened from everything, protected, even more alone than usual.

~ Tove Jansson

But when people understand one another without speaking, it can often leave them with very little to talk about, don’t you think?

~ Tove Jansson

Really good films don't diminish anything, they don't close things off. On the contrary, they open up new insights, they make new thoughts thinkable. They crowd us, they deflate our slovenly lifestyle, our thoughtless way of chattering and pissing away our time and energy and passion. Believe me, films can teach us a huge amount. And they give us a true picture of the way life is.Mari laughed. Of our slovenly lifestyle, you mean? You mean, maybe they teach us to piss our lives away with a little more intelligence, a little more elegance?

~ Tove Jansson

The hemulen woke up slowly and recognised himself and wished he had been someone he didn't know.

~ Tove Jansson

Thingumy and Bob sighed contentedly and settled down to contemplate the precious stone. They stared in silent rapture at it.The ruby changed colour all the time. At first it was quite pale, and then suddenly a pink glow would flow over it like sunrise on a snow capped mountain -- and then again crimson flames shot out of its heart and it seemed like a great black tulip with stamens on fire.

~ Tove Jansson

Someone who eats pancakes and jam can't be so awfully dangerous. You can talk to him.

~ Tove Jansson

Sometimes people are very predictable: they want a kitten in June, for example, and come the first of September they want someone to drown their cat. So someone does. But other times, people have dreams and things they want they can keep. Eriksson was the man who fulfilled these dreams. No one knew exactly what he found for himself along the way - probably a lot less than people thought. But he went on doing it anyway, perhaps for the sake of the search.

~ Tove Jansson

I wish I was more Moomin-minded.

~ Tove Jansson

Quite, quite,' she thought with a little sigh. 'It's always like this in their adventures. To save and be saved. I wish somebody would write a story sometime about the people who warm up the heroes afterward.

~ Tove Jansson

There are empty spaces that must be respected – those often long periods when a person can’t see the pictures or find the words and needs to be left alone.

~ Tove Jansson

a person can also find solitude with others, though it is more difficult

~ Tove Jansson

Everyone must imagine his own snakes because no one else's snakes can ever be as awful.

~ Tove Jansson

If you're not afraid, how can you be really brave?

~ Tove Jansson

She had picked the spot the day before and carried out a stool low enough to sit on and still have her paintbox and her water cup within reach. Anna didn't use an easel. Easels seemed to her an altogether too assertive aid, too obvious. She liked to work as unobtrusively as possible, the paper spread on a board in her lap, close to her hand.

~ Tove Jansson

A very long time ago, Grandmother had wanted to tell about all the things they did, but no one had bothered to ask. And now she had lost the urge.

~ Tove Jansson

And that night he couldn't sleep, but lay looking out at the light June night which was full of lonely whisperings and rustlings and the pattering of feet. The air was sweet with the smell of flowers.

~ Tove Jansson

It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent—lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It's as simple as that.

~ Tove Jansson

Sniff looked at them and noticed that they were much smaller than he was, so he felt kinder and said, condescendingly. Hullo. Nice to see you.

~ Tove Jansson

I know I do everything. I've been doing everything for an awfully long time, and I've seen and lived as hard as I could, and it's been unbelievable, I tell you, unbelievable. But now I have the feeling everything is gliding away from me, and I don't remember, and I don't care, and yet now is right when I need it.

~ Tove Jansson

Pearls' burst out the Snork Maiden excitedly. 'Could ankle rings be made out of pearls?''I should think they could,' said Moomintoll. 'Ankle-rings, and nose-rings and ear-rings and engagement rings...

~ Tove Jansson

The voice of the waves was now mixed with strange sounds; laughter, running feet and the clanging of great bells far out to sea. Snufkin lay still and listened. dreaming and remembering his trip round world. Soon I must set out again, he thought. But not yet.

~ Tove Jansson

There are such a lot of things that have no place in summer and autumn and spring. Everything that’s a little shy and a little rum. Some kinds of night animals and people that don’t fit in with others and that nobody really believes in. They keep out of the way all the year. And then when everything’s quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep—then they appear.

~ Tove Jansson