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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
Write
Draws
Ever
Adventure
Writing
Childhood
Would
Comfort
Mixture
Started
Mixtures
Alone
Hadn
Sure
Excellent
Happy
Draw

More quotes by Tove Jansson

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I'll have to calm down a bit. Or else I'll burst with happiness
Tove Jansson
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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.
Tove Jansson
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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.
Tove Jansson
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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.
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
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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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I need to write down my observations. Even the tiniest ones they're the most important.
Tove Jansson
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It was a particularly good evening to begin a book.
Tove Jansson
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I mean, anyone can let Danger out but the really clever thing is finding somewhere for it to go afterwards.
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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Everything's much too big here,' thought Moominmamma. 'Or perhaps I'm too small.
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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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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Lie on the bridge and watch the water flowing past. Or run, or wade through the swamp in your red boots. Or roll yourself up and listen to the rain falling on the roof. It's very easy to enjoy yourself.
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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I don't want to hear about them any more. I could vomit on the Moomintrolls.
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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... '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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Everyone must imagine his own snakes because no one else's snakes can ever be as awful.
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