Tove Jansson

Novelist

1914-08-09

Quotes by Tove Jansson

• Are you too frightened to go any farther? asked the silk-monkey, who found all this very easy, having four legs herself.I'm never afraid, answered Sniff. But I think the view is better from here.

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• 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!

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• 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.

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• Not one adventure in a whole day, said Sniff, who was taking his turn at steering now the current was slower. Just grey banks and grey banks, and not even an adventure.I think it's very adventurous to float down a winding river, said Moomintroll. You never know what you'll meet round the next corner. You always want adventures, Sniff, and when they come you're so frightened you don't know what to do.Well, I'm not a lion, said Sniff reproachfully. I like small adventures. Just the right size.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• And all you can do is just read, she said. She raised her voice an screamed, You just read and read and read! Then she threw herself down on the table and wept.

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

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• 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]

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• You were talking about the wind, the Fillyjonk said suddenly. A wind that carries off your washing. But I'm speaking about cyclones. Typhoons, Gaffsie dear. Tornadoes, whirlwinds, sandstorms... Flood waves that carry houses away... But most of all I'm talking about myself and my fears, even if I know that's not done. I know everything will turn out badly. I think about that all the time. Even while I'm washing my carpet. Do you understand that? Do you feel the same way?

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• Small animals are a great problem. I wish God had never created small animals, or else that He had made them so they could talk, or else that He'd given them better faces. Space. Take moths. They fly at the lamp and burn themsleves, and then they fly right back again. It can't be instinct, because it isn't the way it works. They just don't understand, so they go right on doing it. Then they lie on their backs and all their legs quiver, and then they're dead. Did you get all that? Does it sound good?Very good, Grandmother said.Sophia stood up and shouted, Say this: say I hate everything that dies slow! Say I hate everything that won't let you help! Did you write that?

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• Are you too frightened to go any farther? asked the silk-monkey, who found all this very easy, having four legs herself.I'm never afraid, answered Sniff. But I think the view is better from here.

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• 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!

  Read quote

• 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.

  Read quote

• 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.

  Read quote