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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!

Tove Jansson

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Tove Jansson
Age: 86 †
Born: 1914
Born: August 9
Died: 2001
Died: June 27
Cartoonist
Illustrator
Novelist
Painter
Writer
Helsingfors
Tove Marika Jansson
Tove M. Jansson
Would
Comfort
Mixture
Started
Mixtures
Alone
Hadn
Sure
Excellent
Happy
Draw
Write
Draws
Ever
Adventure
Writing
Childhood

More quotes by Tove Jansson

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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
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One can't be too dangerous, if they like to eat pancakes. Especially with jam on it.
Tove Jansson
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...by and by a change came: I started to muse about the shape of my nose. I put my trivial surroundings aside and mused more and more about myself, and I found this to be a bewitching occupation. I stopped asking and longed instead to speak of my thoughts and feelings. Alas, there was no one besides myself who found me interesting.
Tove Jansson
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I don't want to hear about them any more. I could vomit on the Moomintrolls.
Tove Jansson
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You can't always be friendly. It's impossible, there isn't the time.
Tove Jansson
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But he thought all the strange words were beautiful, and he had never had a book of his own before.
Tove Jansson
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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
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It's risky to talk about one's most secret dreams a bit too early.
Tove Jansson
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Someone who eats pancakes and jam can't be so awfully dangerous. You can talk to him.
Tove Jansson
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There's no need to imagine that you're a wondrous beauty, because that's what you are.
Tove Jansson
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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.
Tove Jansson
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... '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's gliding away from me, and I don't remember, and I don't care, and yet now is right when I need it!'. [pp. 84-85]
Tove Jansson
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Gathering is peculiar, because you see nothing but what you're looking for. If you're picking raspberries, you see only what's red, and if you're looking for bones you see only the white. No matter where you go, the only thing you see is bones.
Tove Jansson
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One makes a trip by day, but by night one sets out on a journey.
Tove Jansson
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I need to write down my observations. Even the tiniest ones they're the most important.
Tove Jansson
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You can't ever be really free if you admire somebody too much.
Tove Jansson
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''Just think, never to be glad or disappointed. Never to like anyone and get cross at him and forgive him. Never to sleep or feel cold, never to make a mistake and have a stomach-ache and be cured from it, never to have a birthday party, drink beer, and have a bad conscience... How terrible.
Tove Jansson
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It’s only the sea,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Every wave that dies on the beach sings a little song to a shell. But you mustn’t go inside because it’s a labyrinth and you may never come out again.
Tove Jansson
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It was a particularly good evening to begin a book.
Tove Jansson
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I want your first trip to be with me. I want to show you cities and landscapes and teach you how to look at things in new ways and how to get along in places you don't already know inside out. I want to put some life in you.
Tove Jansson