The Summer Book Quotes

“It's funny about love', Sophia said. 'The more you love someone, the less he likes you back.'
'That's very true,' Grandmother observed. 'And so what do you do?'
'You go on loving,' said Sophia threateningly. 'You love harder and harder.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“It was a particularly good evening to begin a book.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive. It has come to a standstill; nothing withers, and fall is not ready to begin. There are no stars yet, just darkness.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“The thing about God, she thought, is that He usually does help, but not until you've made an effort on your own.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“Smell is important. It reminds a person of all the things he's been through; it is a sheath of memories and security.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“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.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“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, The Summer Book

“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, The Summer Book

“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, The Summer Book

“Every year, the bright Scandinavian summer nights fade without anyone's noticing. One evening in August you have an errand outdoors, and all of a sudden it's pitch-black. It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“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 Summer Book

“Wise as she was, she realized that people can postpone their rebellious phases until they're eighty-five years old, and she decided to keep an eye on herself.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“I can dive", Sophia said. "Do you know what it feels like when you dive?"
Of course I do," her grandmother said. "You let go of everything and get ready and just dive. You can feel the seaweed against your legs. It's brown, and the water's clear, lighter towards the top, with lots of bubbles. And you glide. You hold your breath and glide and turn and come up, let yourself rise and breathe out. And then you float. Just float."
And all the time with your eyes open," Sophia said.
Naturally. People don't dive with their eyes shut."
Do you believe I can dive without me showing you?" the child asked.
Yes, of course", Grandmother said.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“Small animals are a great problem. I wish God had never created small animals, or else that He had made them so they could talk, or else that He'd given them better faces. Space. Take moths. They fly at the lamp and burn themsleves, and then they fly right back again. It can't be instinct, because it isn't the way it works. They just don't understand, so they go right on doing it. Then they lie on their backs and all their legs quiver, and then they're dead. Did you get all that? Does it sound good?"
"Very good," Grandmother said.
Sophia stood up and shouted, "Say this: say I hate everything that dies slow! Say I hate everything that won't let you help! Did you write that?”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“Sometimes people never saw things clearly until it was too late and they no longer had the strength to start again. Or else they forgot their idea along the way and didn't even realize that they had forgotten”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“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, The Summer Book

“Sophia and Grandmother sat down by the shore to discuss the matter further. It was a pretty day, and the sea was running a long, windless swell. It was on days just like this--dog days--that boats went sailing off all by themselves. Large, alien objects made their way in from sea, certain things sank and others rose, milk soured, and dragonflies danced in desperation. Lizards were not afraid. When the moon came up, red spiders mated on uninhabited skerries, where the rock became an unbroken carpet of tiny, ecstatic spiders.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“you can't depend on people who just let things happen”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“Even potted plants got to be a responsibility, like everything else you took care of that couldn't make decisions for itself.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“For a while she considered being ill, but she changed her mind...”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“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.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“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]”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“My dear child," said Grandmother impatiently, "every human being has to make his own mistakes." She was very tired, and wanted to get home.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“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”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“Only farmers and summer guests walk on the moss. What they don't know - and it cannot be repeated too often - is that moss is terribly frail. Step on it once and it rises the next time it rains. The second time, it doesn't rise back up. And the third time you step on moss, it dies.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“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]”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“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, The Summer Book

“Commonplace things can be fascinating.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“Seine Gedanken oder plötzlichen Wünsche flogen wie die Laune des Meeres über das Wasser, mal hierhin, mal dorthin, und er lebte ununterbrochen in einer stillen Spannung.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“There is nothing sentimental about this world. Like the weather, this world asks only to be acknowledged. There is nothing comforting about it, and yet if you are afraid to see it in its own terms and look to it for comfort, for solace, you will be left worse off than you were before.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book