Quotes by Finnish Authors

Damp veils of mist swirled around them. They were dreadfully cold (Moomintroll thought longingly of his woolly trousers) and surrounded completely by an awful floating emptiness."I always thought clouds were soft and woolly and nice to be in," said Sniff, sneezing. "Ugh! I'm beginning to be sorry I ever came on this expedition.
Tove Jansson
The pleasure I found in reading books was disconcerting...I felt anxious about every new piece of information. I would latch onto one particular detail and start look for references and other versions of it in other writings. I remembered, for example, that for quite some time I tracked down the subject of kissing. I read and read and felt dizzy with the subject, as if I had eaten a psychotropic fruit.
Hassan Blasim
Even a small star shines in the darkness.
Finnish proverb
Even a small star shines in the darkness.
Finnish proverb
Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room a room in a house a house in an environment an environment in a city plan.
Eero Saarinen
Do you want to know how to write novels? I’ll tell you the secret: start on page one and keep going, in order, until you come to the last page. Then stop.
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
«Per­ho­nen is not here any­more,» it says, with a voice made of wings and whis­pers.
Hannu Rajaniemi
But Moominmamma was quite unperturbed. "Well, well!" she said, "it seems to me that our guests are having a very good time.""I hope so," replied Moominpappa. "Pass me a banana, please dear.
Tove Jansson
Moominmamma had got up very early to pack their rucksacks, and was bustling to and fro with wooly stockings and packets of sandwiches, while down by the bridge Moominpappa was getting their raft in order."Mamma, dar," said Moomintroll, "we can't possibly take all that with us. Everyone will laugh.""It's cold in the Lonely Mountains," said Moominmamma, stuffing in an umbrella and a frying pan. "Have you got a compass?""Yes," answered Moomintroll, "but couldn't you at least leave out the plates -- we can easily eat off rhubarb leaves.
Tove Jansson
Oh!" said Moominmamma with a start, "I believe those were mice disappearing into the cellar. Sniff, run down with a little milk for them." Then she caught sight of the suitcase which stood by the steps. "Luggage too," thought Moominmamma. "Dear me -- then they've come to stay." And she went off to look for Moominpappa to ask him to put up two more beds -- very, very small ones.
Tove Jansson
When you listen to yourself, everything comes naturally. It comes from inside, like a kind of will to do something. Try to be sensitive. That is yoga.
Petri Räisänen
Mel eventually gave up trying to talk to him and just sat there looking at him. There was not likely to be much to look at, apart from the red, puffy eyes, runny nose and the rest of the mess that was Kyle French. Certainly not the once good-looking young student that Mel had developed a crush on.
Pamela Harju
My blog is a collection of answers people don’t want to hear to questions they didn’t ask.
Sebastyne Young
Everybody comes to the library naked. That's why they come here - to dress themselves in books.
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
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
The voice of the waves was now mixed with strange sounds; laughter, running feet and the clanging of great bells far out to sea. Snufkin lay still and listened. dreaming and remembering his trip round world. Soon I must set out again, he thought. But not yet.
Tove Jansson
Now you can all have a wish -- the Moomin family first!"Moominmamma hesitated a bit. "Should it be something you can see?" she asked, "or an idea? If you know what I mean, Mr. Hobgoblin?""Oh, yes!" said the Hobgoblin. "Things are easier of course, but it will work with an idea too.""Then I want to wish that Moomintroll will stop missing Snufkin," said Moominmamma."Oh, dear!" said Moomintroll going pink, "I didn't know it was so obvious!"But the Hobgoblin waved his cloak once, and immediately the sadness flew out of Moomintroll's heart. His longing just became an expectancy, and that felt much better.
Tove Jansson
Real winners do not compete.
Samuli Paronen
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...
Tove Jansson
How happy he must be, this Hobgoblin," exclaimed Sniff."He isn't a bit," replied Snufkin, "and he won't be until he finds the King's Ruby. It's almost as big as the black panther's head, and to look into it is like looking at leaping flames. The Hobgoblin has looked for the King's Ruby on all the planets including Neptune -- but he hasn't found it. Just now he has gone off to the moon to search in the craters, but he hasn't much hope of success, because in his heart of hearts the Hobgoblin believes that the King's Ruby lies in the sun, where he can never go because it is too hot.
Tove Jansson
Magic is all about words and believing. If you believe then anything is possible.
Jennifer Loiske
The world will not spin slower or faster when we have passed through the gate together. What remains is light on water, or a shifting shadow.
Emmi Itäranta
Talent without enthusiasm is likea Ferrari without fuel.
Sebastyne Young
For as from the same piece of clay a potter may fashion either a pot or a tile, so the Devil may shape a witch into a wolf or a cat or even a goat, without subtracting from her and without adding to her at all. For this occurs just as clay is first molded into one, then shaped into another form, for the Devil is a potter and his witches are but clay.
Aino Kallas
Human tragedies:We all want to be extraordinaryand we all just want to fit in.Unfortunately, extraordinary people rarely fit in.
Sebastyne Young
All you need is one thought and one word. When you learn how to connect them, you can do anything you like.
Jennifer Loiske
Water is the most versatile of all elements. It isn't afraid to burn in fire or fade into the sky, it doesn't hesitate to shatter against sharp rocks in rainfall or drown into the dark shroud of the earth. It exists beyond all eginnings and ends. On the surface nothing will shift, but deep in underground silence, water will hide and with soft fingers coax a new channel for itself, until stone gives in and slowly settles around the secret space. Death is water's close companion, and neither of them can be separated from us, for we are made of the versatilitiy of water and the closeness of death. Water doesn't belong to us, be we belong to water: when it has passed through our fingers and pores and bodies, nothing separates us from earth.
Emmi Itäranta
The dead, Your Honor, do not agonize over their crimes and do not long to be happy, as you know.
Hassan Blasim
Being famous without honor is a thing of no worth.
Alaric Longward
Keep to your precious honor. Rather die than sully it. There is only honor in a man's life and the rest is meaningless gibberish.
Alaric Longward
I know I do everything. 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 is gliding away from me, and I don't remember, and I don't care, and yet now is right when I need it.
Tove Jansson
Time erodes people, and when you are old enough you weigh nothing. It's comforting to know that I will never be as frail.
Maija Haavisto
I cannot see that keeping the status quo intact would help in any way to solve the problems of inequality or suffering in this world. I would go for taking action towards change instead of accepting the inevitable.
Elina Juusola
The US is the most wretchedly villainous state of all times. Anyone aware of global issues can easily imagine how vast the hatred for the United States - a corrupted, swollen, paralysing and suffocating political entity - must be across the Third World - and among the thinking minority of the West too.
Pentti Linkola
You’ll live for as long as you live, and once you stop living, you don’t have to worry about staying alive any more because you’ll be dead.
Sebastyne Young
Sniff looked at them and noticed that they were much smaller than he was, so he felt kinder and said, condescendingly. "Hullo. Nice to see you.
Tove Jansson
It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent—lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It's as simple as that.
Tove Jansson
The star we're looking for isn't so very friendly," said Moomintroll. "Quite the contrary, in fact.""What did you say?" said Sniff.Moomintroll went a bit red. "I mean -- stars in general," he said, "big and small, friendly and unfriendly, and so on.""Can they be unfriendly?" asked Snufkin."Yes -- ones with tails," answered Moomintroll. "Comets."At last it dawned on Sniff. "You're hiding something from me!" he said accusingly. "That pattern we saw everywhere, and you said it didn't mean anything!""You're too small to be told everything," answered Moomintroll."Too small!" screamed Sniff. "I must say it's a fine thing to take me on an expedition of discovery and not tell me what I'm supposed to be discovering!
Tove Jansson
I am not a visionary. I'm an engineer. I'm happy with the people who are wandering around looking at the stars but I am looking at the ground and I want to fix the pothole before I fall in.
Linus Torvalds
I have also figured out that for many people death is a difficult subject, not at all as simple as it is for me.
Maija Haavisto
Secrets carve us like water carves stone. On the surface nothing will shift, but things we cannot tell anyone chafe and consume us, and slowly our life settles around them, moulds itself into their shape.Secrets gnaw at the bonds between people. Sometimes we believe they can also build them: if we let another person into the silent space a secret has made within us, we are no longer alone there.
Emmi Itäranta
And that night he couldn't sleep, but lay looking out at the light June night which was full of lonely whisperings and rustlings and the pattering of feet. The air was sweet with the smell of flowers.
Tove Jansson
Yet just as the day has two halves, one governed by the sun and the other by the moon, so there are many who are people of the day and who busy themselves with daytime deeds, whilst others are children of the night, their minds consumed with nocturnal notions; but yet there are some in whom the two merge like the rising of the sun and the moon in a day.
Aino Kallas
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.
Tove Jansson
...the chief cause for the impending collapse of the world - the cause sufficient in and by itself - is the enormous growth of the human population: the human flood. The worst enemy of life is too much life: the excess of human life.
Pentti Linkola
She had picked the spot the day before and carried out a stool low enough to sit on and still have her paintbox and her water cup within reach. Anna didn't use an easel. Easels seemed to her an altogether too assertive aid, too obvious. She liked to work as unobtrusively as possible, the paper spread on a board in her lap, close to her hand.
Tove Jansson
When they reached the top of the hill they turned and looked down at the valley. Moominhouse was just a blue dot, and the river a narrow ribbon of green: the swing they couldn't see at all. "We've never been such a long way from home before," said Moomintroll, and a little goose-fleshy thrill of excitement came over them at the thought.
Tove Jansson
Life would not be the same ever again. I would laugh again like a happy man would, seemingly with few worries in the world, yes, for memories fade, even of a deed like the one I had committed. However, the knowledge was there, sad and lingering, and I knew I had lost something.
Alaric Longward
If you're not afraid, how can you be really brave?
Tove Jansson
Pretend that you're a clever shepherd girl, and you're just dressed up in pretty clothes, and you're trying to make everybody believe that you're a spoiled, empty-headed little princess. So no one guesses that under your clothes you're a brave shepherd girl who climbs trees and chases away wolves with your staff.
Johanna Sinisalo
The room had lost its morning light, the glow of expectation and potential. The daylight was now gray, and the new day was already used, a little soiled by mistaken thoughts and makeshift undertakings.
Tove Jansson
Sophia," she said, "this is really not something to argue about. You can see for yourself that life is hard enough without being punished for it afterwards. We get comfort when we die, that's the whole idea
Tove Jansson
There is no greater love than a maker’s for the things she makes. Especially when they grow to be something she never imagined.
Hannu Rajaniemi
Live on berries in a hollowed-out comet lit by artificial suns long enough, and you start to have delusions about achieving enlightenment.
Hannu Rajaniemi
I'm afraid we shall waste an awful lot of time.""Don't worry," answered Snufkin, "we shall have wonderful dreams, and when we wake up it'll be spring.
Tove Jansson
Let Death Bless Me With You
HIM
Words shall not be hidnor spells buriedmight shall not sink undergroundthough the mighty go.
Elias Lönnrot
Everyone must imagine his own snakes because no one else's snakes can ever be as awful.
Tove Jansson
What are you thinking of discovering?"Moomintroll cleared his throat and felt very proud. "Oh, everything," he said. "Stars, for example!"Snufkin was deeply impressed."Stars!" he exclaimed. "Then I must come with you. Stars are my favorite things. I always lie and look at them before I go to sleep, and wonder who is on them and how one could get there. The sky looks so friendly with all those little eyes twinkling in it.
Tove Jansson
I should learn patience, it's a shame there's no time for that.
Maija Haavisto