Quote

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

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
Imagine
Everyone
Else
Ever
Must
Snakes
Awful

More quotes by Tove Jansson

Image
... '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
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
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
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
It was a particularly good evening to begin a book.
Tove Jansson
Image
It's risky to talk about one's most secret dreams a bit too early.
Tove Jansson
Image
One makes a trip by day, but by night one sets out on a journey.
Tove Jansson
Image
I'll have to calm down a bit. Or else I'll burst with happiness
Tove Jansson
Image
The hemulen woke up slowly and recognised himself and wished he had been someone he didn't know.
Tove Jansson
Image
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
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
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
...now and then a giggling trail of mermaids appeared in our wake. We fed them oatmeal.
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
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
I don't want to hear about them any more. I could vomit on the Moomintrolls.
Tove Jansson
Image
You can't ever be really free if you admire somebody too much.
Tove Jansson
Image
Everything's much too big here,' thought Moominmamma. 'Or perhaps I'm too small.
Tove Jansson
Image
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
Image
I mean, anyone can let Danger out but the really clever thing is finding somewhere for it to go afterwards.
Tove Jansson