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

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
Friendly
Friendship
Impossible
Always
Time

More quotes by 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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...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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Everything's much too big here,' thought Moominmamma. 'Or perhaps I'm too small.
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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
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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.
Tove Jansson
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It was a particularly good evening to begin a book.
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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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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... '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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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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Someone who eats pancakes and jam can't be so awfully dangerous. You can talk to him.
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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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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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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One can't be too dangerous, if they like to eat pancakes. Especially with jam on it.
Tove Jansson
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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
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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
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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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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 need to write down my observations. Even the tiniest ones they're the most important.
Tove Jansson