The True Deceiver Quotes

“It was simply that she was only fully alive when she devoted herself to her singular ability to draw, and when she drew she was naturally always alone.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Nothing can be as peaceful and endless as a long winter darkness, going on and on, like living in a tunnel where the dark sometimes deepens into night and sometimes eases to twilight, you're screened from everything, protected, even more alone than usual.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Before she left, she said, "Just remember one thing: Going along with something doesn't mean you give in to it.[...]”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Does your sister read our books?” Anna wanted to know.
“No. She reads literature.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“If she really were what she pretends to be, everything would have been wrong, everything I did and said and tried to get her to see, it would all have been monstrous. But her innocence left her a very long time ago, and she never noticed. She eats only grass, but she has a meat eater’s heart. And she doesn’t know it, and no one has told her. Maybe they don’t care enough about her to take the chance. What should I do? How many different truths are there, and what justifies them? What a person believes? What a person accomplishes? Self-deception? Is it only the result that counts? I no longer know.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver (New York Review Books

“You sentimentalise them because they're little," she said. "But the format doesn't matter. I have gradually learned that everyone, absolutely everyone of every size, is out to get something. People want things. It comes to them naturally. Of course they get more skilful with age, and they're no longer so disarmingly obvious, but the goal doesn't change. Your children simply haven't had time to learn how it's done. That's what we call innocence.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“I remember the dog at home, when I was a girl; the one that killed chickens. They tied a dead hen around his neck and he carried it around with him all day until he just lay there unmoving with his eyes shut in a morass of shame. It was cruel. There's nothing so hideously easy as giving someone a bad conscience.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Anna hadde gitt hunden et navn fordi alt navnløst har en tilbøyelighet til å vokse, hun avkledde dyrets farlighet ved å kalle det Teddy.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Why aren’t people afraid of their dogs? How long can what was once a wild animal deny its wildness?”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“The wind had risen. It pressed snow against the windows with a powerful whispering that had followed the people of the village for a long, long time. Between squalls there was silence.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver (New York Review Books

“Oh, Anna Aemelin, the only thing you care about is your own conscience. That's what you cherish. You're a charming little liar.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“(...) og forresten er vel alle og enhver ulykkelig på sin egen måte, og det skulle jeg tro de har rett til!”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Det er snølyset," sa hun. "Alt blir pent i snølys.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Ingen ting kan være så rolig og så uendelig som et langt vitermørke, det fortsetter og fortsetter, det er som å leve i en tunnel der mørket stundom fordyper seg til natt og stundom blir dagskumring, man er avskjermet fra alt, beskyttet og mer ensom enn ellers.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Anyone can lose his temper and fly off the handle. But it’s better than being mean.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“A great sadness gripped her. It can be sad having a friend you’ve admired too much and seen too rarely and told too many things that you should have kept to yourself.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver (New York Review Books

“Dogs are mute and obedient, but they have watched us and know us and can smell how pitiful we are. It should astonish us, move us, overwhelm us that our dogs continue, incredibly, to follow us and obey us. Maybe they despise us. Maybe they forgive us. Or maybe they like having no responsibility. We’ll never know. Maybe they see us as some sort of unfortunate race of overgrown, misshapen beings, like huge sluggish beetles. Not gods. Dogs must have seen through us, they must possess a crushing insight that thousands of years of obedience holds in check.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver (New York Review Books

“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, The True Deceiver

“Finally Anna picked up the letters again, searched through them, fastened her eyes on Katri, and said, "This is wrong! Here you're not me! If a child is mad at her parents it's no comfort that the parents may be having troubles of their own. That's the wrong comfort! I never would have written that. Parents have to be strong and perfect of the child can't believe in them. You'll have to fix it."

Katri's reaction was suddenly vehement. "But how can they rely on what's not reliable? For how many years do we fool these children into believing in something they shouldn't believe in? They have to learn early, or they'll never manage on their own.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“This wasn't at all what I wanted to talk about, which is this: How did the rabbits get all covered with flowers?"

"Tell them it's a secret. Tell them they don't need to know."

"Exactly," said Anna. "You're right. That's the best thing you've said tonight. They don't need to know, and I don't want to know. So there!”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“A contract," Katri went on earnestly. "A contract is really much more remarkable than you might think. It doesn't just bind. I've noticed that for some people it's a relief to live with a contract. It frees them from indecision and confusion, they no longer have to choose. Both sides have agreed to share and assume responsibilities. It is, or ought to be, a deliberate promise where people have at least tried to be fair.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“She could easily have remarked on the heavy skiing weather, or asked how he could even see the road, or complained about the town not getting its ploughs out-- anything at all to show interest or pretend to show interest, the way people talk to make things a little more pleasant-- but no, not Katri Kling. There she stood squinting through her cigarette smoke, her black hair like a mane shrouding her face as she leaned over the table.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“The dog continued to bark at night, sometimes far away, sometimes close to the house. Towards morning, he would howl. It could be quiet for hours, but there were those who lay in bed waiting for the next howl, and they would say, "Did you hear that? It's like having a wolf in the woods. An unhappy woman has an unhappy dog. It ought to be shot."

Katri did not talk about the dog, but she put out food and water in the yard. Sometimes at night Mats would wait by the kitchen window with the light off and the door open. He saw the dog only once, just as it was growing light, and he went very slowly out on the steps and tried to coax it in. But it ran off into the woods, so he gave up.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“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, The True Deceiver

“Ja, det forstår jeg. En går helst bare ut når en må. Eller når en har lyst. Det er vel best å vente, og kjenne etter.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Hvis man prøver av alle krefter, til det ytterste, må det ikke være hensikten som teller mest, teller mer enn hvordan det til slutt gikk?”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Å, Anna Aemelin, det eneste du bryr deg om, er din egen samvittighet, det er den du pleier.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Mats har ingen hemmeligheter. Det er derfor han er så hemmelighetsfull. Ingen må forstyrre ham, han må få være uforstyrret i en forenklet og ren verden.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“It can be sad having a friend you've admired too much and seen too rarely and told too many things that you should have kept to yourself.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

“Tell them it's a secret. Tell them they don't need to know.”
― Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver