Quotes by Finnish Authors - Page 3

It was one of those dreams from which she woke up depressed about her reality, filled with a longing that pulled at her insides, wishing the dream could have lasted forever, or at least much longer than it had.
Michael Monroe
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
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?
Tove Jansson
Ripe summer's sweetness drippedin pearls from every treeand into my opened hearta little drop ran down.
Edith Södergran
Clever of you, Hemul. But, on the other hand, think how lonely the Groke is because nobody likes her, and she hates everybody. The Contents is perhaps the only thing she has. Would you now take that away from her too -- lonely and rejected in the night?" Sniff became more and more affected and his voice trembled. "Cheated out of her only possession by Thingumy and Bob." He blew his nose and couldn't go on.
Tove Jansson
I should learn patience, it's a shame there's no time for that.
Maija Haavisto
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
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
There’s a big difference between being numb to something and being immune to it.
Michael Monroe
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
Everybody comes to the library naked. That's why they come here - to dress themselves in books.
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
My mother always said - "Never run after a man or a bus - there is always another one coming.
Tessa Kiros
Then -- they saw the Groke. Everybody saw her. She sat motionless on the sandy path at the bottom of the steps and stared at them with round, expressionless eyes.She was not particularly big and didn't look dangerous either, but your let that she was terribly evil and would wait for ever. And that was awful.Nobody plucked up enough courage to attack. She sat there for a while, and then slid away into the darkness. But where she had been sitting the ground was frozen!
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
Sometimes it is necessary to step into darkness alone and find your way back. To carry something with you into light you could not have found anywhere else.
Emmi Itäranta
Thingumy and Bob sighed contentedly and settled down to contemplate the precious stone. They stared in silent rapture at it.The ruby changed colour all the time. At first it was quite pale, and then suddenly a pink glow would flow over it like sunrise on a snow capped mountain -- and then again crimson flames shot out of its heart and it seemed like a great black tulip with stamens on fire.
Tove Jansson
Increasing knowledge lessens the sphere of the supernatural.
Edvard Westermarck
Well, for one, you walk around like you’re so much better than everyone else. We’re all a bunch of soulless animals or somethin’ in your eyes, I guess. You’re the high and mighty one and I ain’t fit to drink your piss.
Michael Monroe
The Swedes have coined the term 'management by perkele' to portray the Finnish managerial approach. Instead of collectively pondering all the possible alternatives and letting every member of the staff from the cleaner to the MD voice their views, as the Swedes do, the Finns act swiftly and don't waste time on the decision-making process. If something isn't happening quickly enough, it is necessary for the top managers to slam their fists on the table and yell, 'Perkele!' Repeatedly, if necessary.
Tarja Moles
When Mats came in the evenings, they would drink tea in the kitchen while reading their books and talking about them. If Katri came in, they were quiet and waited for her to leave. The back door would close, and Katri would have gone.“Does your sister read our books?” Anna wanted to know.“No. She reads literature.
Tove Jansson
There's no need to kick him in the balls for him to tell the story honestly and impartially, because the dead are usually honest, even the bastards among them.
Hassan Blasim
I cannot stress enough the perils of your friends marrying or becoming court inventors. One day you are all a society of outlaws, adventurous comrades and companions who will be pushing off somewhere or other when things become tiresome; you have all the world to choose from, just by looking at the map… And then, suddenly, they’re not interested any more. They want to keep warm. They’re afraid of rain. They start collecting big things that can’t fit in a rucksack. They talk only of small things. They don’t like to make sudden decisions and do something contrariwise. Formerly they hoisted sail; now they carpenter little shelves for porcelain mugs.
Tove Jansson
Humans have been doin’ awful things to each other throughout history. Humanity’s not as great as you make it out to be. I do what needs to be done, and that’s that. We’re about to go to war, Earl. There ain’t no humanity in war.
Michael Monroe
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
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
Not one adventure in a whole day," said Sniff, who was taking his turn at steering now the current was slower. "Just grey banks and grey banks, and not even an adventure.""I think it's very adventurous to float down a winding river," said Moomintroll. "You never know what you'll meet round the next corner. You always want adventures, Sniff, and when they come you're so frightened you don't know what to do.""Well, I'm not a lion," said Sniff reproachfully. "I like small adventures. Just the right size.
Tove Jansson
each morning we’re born againof yesterday nothing remainswhat’s left began today
Anselm Hollo
Well one tiny poisonous spider can kill a very large man if it bites him in the right place.
Michael Monroe
Malander had an idea and was trying to work it out, but it would take him time. 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 realise that they forgotten.
Tove Jansson
Talent without enthusiasm is likea Ferrari without fuel.
Sebastyne Young
You sought a flower and found a fruit. You sought a spring and found a sea. You sought a woman and found a soul - you are disappointed.
Edith Södergran
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
I live on in the sweetness of old dayswith strangers who build new dwellingson blue hills up to the edge of the sky,I talk softly with the captured treesand comfort them sometimes.How slowly time consumes the core of things,and soundlessly treads fate’s heavy heel.
Edith Södergran
Do not seek power for revenge. Seek power in order to avoid situations that would make you want revenge.
Salla Simukka
We don’t want our politicians bending to the whims of whichever corporation has the money to pay them off.
Michael Monroe
As far as I know, there’s nothing more dangerous than a man who doesn’t care if he lives or dies.
Michael Monroe
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
Later she came to realise that under one reality there’s always another. And another one under that.
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
It is said, once a wise man from the far North told me; it is said that there are in certain parts of Scandinavia cities within cities like there are circles within circles; existent yet invisible. And those cities are inhabited by creatures more terrible than imagination can create : man-shaped but man-devouring, as black and as silent as the night they prowl in.
Johanna Sinisalo
I don’t recall ever seeing my mother as a human being. She would always be weeping and wailing in the corner of the kitchen like a dog tied up to be tormented. My father would assail her with a hail of insults, and when her endurance broke, she would whine aloud, ‘Why good Lord? Why? Take me and save me.’ Only then would my father stand up, take the cord out of his headdress, and whip her nonstop for half an hour, spitting at her throughout.
Hassan Blasim
Ella had asked the writer how it felt to see her own works published. Seläntö had smiled sweetly at her and whispered, “You know what? It makes you understand why a dog eats its own vomit.
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
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
People didn’t love all of this when they still had it. If you love something, you do what’s best for it. You don’t destroy it.
Michael Monroe
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
Here is the most valuable thing in the whole of Moomin Valley, Groke! Do you know what has grown out of this hat? Raspberry juice and fruit trees, and the most beautiful little self-propelling clouds: the only Hobgoblin's Hat in the world!
Tove Jansson
My blog is a collection of answers people don’t want to hear to questions they didn’t ask.
Sebastyne Young
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
The Groke looked at the hat. Then she looked at Thingumy and Bob. Then she looked at the hat again. You could see that she was thinking with all her might. Then suddenly she snatched the hat and, without a word, slithered like ann icy grey shadow into the forest. It was the last time she was seen in the Valley of the Moomins, and the last they saw of the Hobgoblin's Hat, too. At once the colors became warmer again and the garden was filled with the sounds and scents of summer.
Tove Jansson
All men have parties and are pals who never let each other down. A pal can say terrible things which are forgotten the next day. A pal never forgives, he just forgets, and a woman forgives but never forgets. That's how it is. That's why women aren't allowed to have parties. Being forgiven is very unpleasant.
Tove Jansson
I would like to think she turns around and goes home and does one thing differently that day because of what she has imagined, and again the day after that, and the day after that.
Emmi Itäranta
Who knows? Life may just be a Positive Conspiracy bent on putting us in the right place at the right time every living, breathing moment of the day. It just takes a certain kind of perspective to see this. Realizing this can put our "analyzer" on hold, our interpretive mind on "ga-ga" and our hearts on breathless.
Antero Alli
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
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
Our world must be hell, then. It must be the hell of some other place where all of us committed atrocious sins of some sort, and now we’re stuck here until we die and either come back or are whisked off to some other hell. It couldn’t be worse than this one, though.
Michael Monroe
But water doesn't care for human sorrows. It flows without slowing or quickening its pace in the darkness of the earth, where only stones will hear.
Emmi Itäranta
Besides, I don’t understand people who read a book for pleasure and then ruminate on the book’s ideas. Paper was invented so we wouldn’t have to keep all those thoughts in our heads.
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
Being who you are for ever is the price you pay for im­mor­tal­ity.
Hannu Rajaniemi
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
A picture can tell a thousand words,but a few words can change it’s story.
Sebastyne Young
He hugged me, and I let him press me against his godlike body. What? A girl should have some fun sometimes.
Jennifer Loiske