Moominpappa missed his family and his veranda. He suddenly got the feeling that only there could he be as free and as adventurous as a good father should be.
Tove Jansson - The Invisible Child/Tales from Moominvalley
Did you know that if you fly hundreds and hundreds of miles up into the air that the sky is no longer blue?
Moomintroll
Making a journey by night is more wonderful than anything in the world.
Moominpappa in Moominpappa at Sea
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, Tales from Moominvalley
The very last house stood all by itself under a dark green wall of fir-trees, and here the wild country really began. Snufkin walked faster and faster straight into the forest. Then the door of the last house opened a chink and a very old voice cried: ‘Where are you off to?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Snufkin replied.The door shut again and Snufkin entered his forest, with a hundred miles of silence ahead of him.c
Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter
A theatre is the most important sort of house in the world, because that’s where people are shown what they could be if they wanted, and what they’d like to be if they dared to and what they really are
Tove Jansson, Moominsummer Madness
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.
Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter
Snorkmaiden stood with her ears drooping. Moomintroll pressed his snout against hers and said, “There’s no need to pretend that you are radiantly beautiful, because you are. Don’t worry, we can play ‘damsel in distress’ tomorrow instead.”
Tove Jansson, from the book Moominsummer Madness
I’ll have to calm down a bit. Or else I’ll burst with happiness
Moomintroll in Moominsummer Madness