Someone who eats pancakes and jam can't be so awfully dangerous. You can talk to him.

— Tove Jansson

Sometimes people are very predictable: they want a kitten in June, for example, and come the first of September they want someone to drown their cat. So someone does. But other times, people have dreams and things they want they can keep. Eriksson was the man who fulfilled these dreams. No one knew exactly what he found for himself along the way - probably a lot less than people thought. But he went on doing it anyway, perhaps for the sake of the search.

— Tove Jansson

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 sherries, where the rock became an unbroken carpet of tiny, ecstatic spiders.

— 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 afterward. We get comfort when we die, that's the whole idea

— Tove Jansson

The Broke looked at the hat. Then she looked at Thingummy 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 gray shadow into the forest. It was the last time she was seen in the Valley of the Moo mins, 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

The Helen woke up slowly and recognized himself and wished he had been someone he didn't know.

— Tove Jansson

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.

— Tove Jansson

Then -- they saw the Broke. 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 forever. 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

There are empty spaces that must be respected – those often long periods when a person can’t see the pictures or find the words and needs to be left alone.

— Tove Jansson

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