Tove Jansson

“You were talking about the wind," the Fillyjonk said suddenly. "A wind that carries off your washing. But I'm speaking about cyclones. Typhoons, Gaffsie dear. Tornadoes, whirlwinds, sandstorms... Flood waves that carry houses away... But most of all I'm talking about myself and my fears, even if I know that's not done. I know everything will turn out badly. I think about that all the time. Even while I'm washing my carpet. Do you understand that? Do you feel the same way?”

“For a while she considered being ill, but she changed her mind...”

“Fly! ropade muminmamman. Polisen är här!Hon visste inte vad hennes mumintroll hade gjort men var alldeles säker på att hon gillade det.”

“she counted out five sweets and put them on a saucer. Then she went and put them on the ledge in the cliff to cheer him up.”

“Allting blir svårt när man vill äga saker, bära dem med sig och ha dem. Jag bara tittar på dem och när jag går min väg har jag dem inne i huvudet och kan ha roligare saker för mig än att bära kappsäckar.”

“...now and then a giggling trail of mermaids appeared in our wake. We fed them oatmeal.”

“The spirit of adventure sped through his soul on mighty wings.”

“Isn't it fun when one's friends get exactly what suits them?”

“...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.”

“It'd be awful if the world exploded, it's so wonderfully splendid”

“Ni vet ju att folk blir osynliga om man skrämmer dom för ofta...”

“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.”

“He didn't remember, he didn't worry, he just was.”

“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...”

“I am fond of lovely old words like 'locomotive'.”

“I need to write down my observations. Even the tiniest ones; they're the most important.”

“Before we left, Grandmother talked a lot about the arctic night we would fly through. 'Isn't it a mystical word, "arctic"? Pure and quite hard. And meridians. Isn't that pretty? We're going to fly along them, faster than the light can follow us... Time won't be able to catch us.”

“He read the classics, the French and the German among others, but primarily the Russian, which enchanted him with their heavy patience.”

“Smell is important. It reminds a person of all the things he's been through; it is a sheath of memories and security.”

“But he thought all the strange words were beautiful, and he had never had a book of his own before.”

“Grandmother walked up over the bare granite and thought about birds in general. It seemed to her no other creature had the same dramatic capacity to underline and perfect events -- the shifts in the seasons and the weather, the changes that run through people themselves. p.33”

“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.”

“Pearls' burst out the Snork Maiden excitedly. 'Could ankle rings be made out of pearls?''I should think they could,' said Moomintoll. 'Ankle-rings, and nose-rings and ear-rings and engagement rings...”

“There are such a lot of things that have no place in summer and autumn and spring. Everything that’s a little shy and a little rum. Some kinds of night animals and people that don’t fit in with others and that nobody really believes in. They keep out of the way all the year. And then when everything’s quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep—then they appear.”

“The quiet transition from autumn to winter is not a bad time at all. It's a time for protecting and securing things and for making sure you've got in as many supplies as you can. It's nice to gather together everything you possess as close to you as possible, to store up your warmth and your thoughts and burrow yourself into a deep hole inside, a core of safety where you can defend what is important and precious and your very own. Then the cold and the storms and the darkness can do their worst. They can grope their way up the walls looking for a way in, but they won't find one, everything is shut, and you sit inside, laughing in your warmth and your solitude, for you have had foresight.”

“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.”

“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.”

“One must use the night.”

“Some people just shouldn't be disturbed in their inclinations, whether large or small. A reminder can instantly turn enthusiasm into aversion and spoil everything.”

“Everything's much too big here,' thought Moominmamma. 'Or perhaps I'm too small.”

“Making a journey by night is more wonderful than anything in the world.”

“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.”

“‎''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.”

“He was the owner of the moonlight on the ground, he fell in love with the most beautiful of the trees, he made wreaths of leaves and strung them around his neck.”

“Most of the people are homesick anyway, and a little lonely, and they hide themselves in their hair and are turned into flowers.”

“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.”

“Разкажи ми за снега- каза Муминтрол и се отпусна в татковия избелял от слънцето градински стол.- Просто не мога да го проумея.Нито пък аз- увери го Тоо-тики. - Мислиш си, че е студен, а като направиш от него снежна къща, става топъл. Мислиш си, че е бял, а понякога става розов и друг път- син. Може да е най-мекото от всички неща, но може и да е по-твърд от камък. Нищо не е сигурно.”

“An island can be dreadful for someone from outside. Everything is complete, and everyone has his obstinate, sure and self-sufficient place. Within their shores, everything functions according to rituals that are as hard as rock from repetition, and at the same time they amble through their days as whimsically and casually as if the world ended at the horizon.”

“A very long time ago, Grandmother had wanted to tell about all the things they did, but no one had bothered to ask. And now she had lost the urge.”

“It’s strange,” Moominmamma thought. “Strange that people can be sad, and even angry because life is too easy. But that’s the way it is, I suppose. The only thing to do is to start life afresh.”

“…”But on an occasion like this we must wait for sunset. Setting out in the right way is just as important as the opening lines in a book: they determine everything.” He sat in the sand next to Moominmamma. “Look at the boat,” he said. “Look at The Adventure. A boat by night is a wonderful sight. This is the way to start a new life, with a hurricane lamp shining at the top of the mast, and the coastline disappearing behind one as the whole world lies sleeping. Making a journey by night is more wonderful than anything in the world.”“Yes, you’re right,” replied Moominmamma. “One makes a trip by day, but by night one sets out on a journey.”

“It's a funny thing about bogs. You can fill them with rocks and sand and old logs and make a little fenced-in yard on top with a woodpile and chopping block - but bogs go right on behaving like bogs. Early in the spring they breathe ice and make their own mist, in remembrance of the time when they had black water and their own sedge blossoming untouched.”

“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.”

“It's funny about me,' Sophia said. 'I always feel like such a nice girl whenever there's a storm.'"'You do?' Grandmother said. 'Well, maybe ...' Nice, she thought. No. I'm certainly not nice. The best you could say of me is that I'm interested. [pp. 150-151]”

“Now everything was changed. She walked about with cautious, anxious steps, staring constantly at the ground, on the lookout for things that crept and crawled. Bushes were dangerous, and so were sea grass and rain water. There were little animals everywhere. They could turn up between the covers of a book, flattened and dead, for the fact is that creeping animals, tattered animals, and dead animals are with us all our lives, from beginning to end. Grandmother tried to discuss this with her, to no avail. Irrational terror is so hard to deal with. [p. 136]”

“... '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]”

“Frøken Aemelin, nesten alt det som folk gjør mot hverandre, betyr som handling betraktet svært lite. Det som er avgjørende, er deres formål, hvor de vil hen, hva de vil ha tak i.”

“Det er snølyset," sa hun. "Alt blir pent i snølys.”

“Stol på meg, frøken Aemelin, folk som man kan lure, liker man litt mindre.”

“Ja, det forstår jeg. En går helst bare ut når en må. Eller når en har lyst. Det er vel best å vente, og kjenne etter.”