Tove Jansson Quotes

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

No well-bred person goes ashore on someone else's island when there's no one home. But if they put up a sign, then you do it anyway, because it's a slap in the face

Jag trur inte att jag helt och hållet är lesbisk... och mitt förhållande til männen er oförandrat.

Grandmother walked up over the bare granite and thought about birds in general. It seemed to her no other creature had the same dramatic capacity to underline and perfect events - the shifts in the seasons and the weather, the changes that run through people themselves. p.33

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

Najednou se muminka zmocnila taková radost, že se musel odebrat do samoty. Okdráčel pomalu ke kůlně. A když ho nikdo neviděl, dal se do běhu. Běžel v roztálém sněhu, slunce se mu opíralo do zad a on běžel a běžel, protože byl šťastný a na nic nemyslel.