Quote

You can't always be friendly. It's impossible, there isn't the time.

Tove Jansson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Time
Friendly
Friendship
Impossible
Always

More quotes by Tove Jansson

Image
You can't ever be really free if you admire somebody too much.
Tove Jansson
Image
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.
Tove Jansson
Image
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.
Tove Jansson
Image
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
Image
It's risky to talk about one's most secret dreams a bit too early.
Tove Jansson
Image
''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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I don't want to hear about them any more. I could vomit on the Moomintrolls.
Tove Jansson
Image
I need to write down my observations. Even the tiniest ones they're the most important.
Tove Jansson
Image
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.
Tove Jansson
Image
Everyone must imagine his own snakes because no one else's snakes can ever be as awful.
Tove Jansson
Image
One makes a trip by day, but by night one sets out on a journey.
Tove Jansson
Image
I mean, anyone can let Danger out but the really clever thing is finding somewhere for it to go afterwards.
Tove Jansson
Image
...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
Image
...now and then a giggling trail of mermaids appeared in our wake. We fed them oatmeal.
Tove Jansson
Image
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.
Tove Jansson
Image
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
Image
One can't be too dangerous, if they like to eat pancakes. Especially with jam on it.
Tove Jansson