Tove Jansson Quotes - Page 2

Anyway, solitary people interest me. There are so many different ways of being solitary.' 'I know just what you mean,' said X. 'I know exactly what you're going to say. Different kinds of solitude. Enforced solitude and voluntary solitude.' 'Quite,' said Viktoria. 'There's no need to go into it further. But when people understand one another without speaking, it can often leave them with very little to talk about, don't you think?

One makes a trip by day, but by night one sets out on a journey.

I love borders. August is the border between summer and autumn; it is the most beautiful month I know.

I don't want to hear about them any more. I could vomit on the Moomintrolls.

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.

But that's how it is when you start wanting to have things. Now, I just look at them, and when I go away I carry them in my head. Then my hands are always free, because I don't have to carry a suitcase.

It was a particularly good evening to begin a book.

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.

He didn't remember, he didn't worry, he just was.

It's funny about love', Sophia said. 'The more you love someone, the less he likes you back.' 'That's very true,' Grandmother observed. 'And so what do you do?' 'You go on loving,' said Sophia threateningly. 'You love harder and harder.

I mean, anyone can let Danger out but the really clever thing is finding somewhere for it to go afterwards.

For a while she considered being ill, but she changed her mind.

Christmas always rustled. It rustled every time, mysteriously, with silver and gold paper, tissue paper and a rich abundance of shiny paper, decorating and hiding everything and giving a feeling of reckless extravagance.

Why are you in such a rush?" Sophia asked, and her grandmother answered that it was a good idea to do things before you forgot that they had to be done.

Before we left, Grandmother talked a lot about the arctic night we would fly through. 'Isn't it a mystical word, "arctic"? Pure and quite hard. And meridians. Isn't that pretty? We're going to fly along them, faster than the light can follow us... Time won't be able to catch us.

Look at The Adventure. A boat by night is a wonderful sight. This is the way to start a new life, with a hurricane lamp shining at the top of the mast, and the coastline disappearing behind one as the whole world lies sleeping. Making a journey by night is more wonderful than anything in the world.

It's a funny thing about bogs. You can fill them with rocks and sand and old logs and make a little fenced-in yard on top with a woodpile and chopping block - but bogs go right on behaving like bogs. Early in the spring they breathe ice and make their own mist, in remembrance of the time when they had black water and their own sedge blossoming untouched.

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

I'm not sure I would have ever started to draw, let alone write, if my childhood hadn't been so happy. It was a mixture of comfort and adventure. An excellent mixture!

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.

It's risky to talk about one's most secret dreams a bit too early.

Smell is important. It reminds a person of all the things he's been through; it is a sheath of memories and security.

One must use the night.

They were always doing something. Quietly, without interruption, and with great concentration, they carried on with the hundred-and-one small things that made up their world.

It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive. It has come to a standstill; nothing withers, and fall is not ready to begin. There are no stars yet, just darkness.