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Quote by Tove Jansson

“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.”

Quote by Tove Jansson

Book:The Summer Book
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Work

The Summer Book

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Author

Tove Jansson
Tove Jansson

Tove Jansson, born on August 9, 1914, and died on June 27, 2001, was a renowned Finnish novelist. Her works are known for their unique style and profound emotions, which have won the hearts of readers worldwide. more

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“Each tile is curved and has an attractive rough texture. The colour varies from bright vermilion to dull Venetian red. They have the patina of almost two centuries of English sunshine and rain and are patterned with mosses in a wide range of emerald, apple and viridian greens. Any one of them, tastefully framed and hung in a London art gallery, would get rave notices from the critics.”

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“The cave was cool and silent- thoroughly carpeted- with the most luxuriant mantle of mosses Alma Whittaker had ever seen. The cave was not merely mossy; it throbbed with moss. It was not merely green; it was frantically green. It was so bright in its verdure that the color nearly spoke, as though- smashing through the world of sight- it wanted to migrate into the world of sound. The moss was a thick, living pelt, transforming every rock surface into a mythical, sleeping beast. Improbably, the deepest corners of the cave glittered the brightest; they were absolutely studded, Alma realized with a gasp, with the jewellike filigree of 'Schistotega pennata.' Goblin's gold, dragon's gold, elfin gold- 'Schistotega pennata' was that rarest of cave mosses, that false gem that gleams like a cat's eye from within the permanent twilight of geologic shade, that unearthly sparkling plant that needs but the briefest sliver of light each day to sparkle like glory forever, that brilliant trickster whose shining facets have fooled so many travelers over the centuries into believing that they have stumbled upon hidden treasure. But to Alma, this 'was' treasure, more stunning than actual riches, for it bedecked the entire cave in the uncanny, glistering, emerald light that she had only ever before seen in miniature, in glimpses of moss seen through a microscope... yet now she was standing fully within it.”

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Book:The Signature of All Things
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“More delicately, more intricately fashioned than any grasses of the field, more subtle in texture than any seaweed of the sea, more thickly woven, and with a sort of intimate passionate patience, by the creative spirit within it, than any forest leaves or any lichen upon any tree trunk, this sacred moss of Somersetshire would remain as a perfectly satisfying symbol of life if all other vegetation were destroyed out of that country. There is a religious reticence in the nature of moss.”

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“The greatest rebellion is not against society, but against the self you were told to become. To unbecome is to begin again, to find the raw, unshaped core of who you are and who you might be." -Jop Helm”

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Book:COVERT CONTROL: Unveiling the Dark Art of Social Manipulation
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“But this is certain, that on the broken rocks of the foreground in the crystalline groups the mosses seem to set themselves consentfully and deliberately to the task of producing the most exquisite harmonies of color in their power. They will not conceal the form of the rock, but will gather over it in little brown bosses, like small cushions of velvet made of mixed threads of dark ruby silk and gold, rounded over more subdued films of white and grey, with lightly crisped and curled edges like hoar frost on fallen leaves, and minute clusters of upright orange stalks with pointed caps, and fibres of deep green, and gold, and faint purple passing into black, all woven together, and following with unimaginable fineness of gentle growth the undulation of the stone they cherish, until it is charged with color so that it can receive no more; and instead of looking rugged, or cold, or stern, as anything that a rock is held to be at heart, it seems to be clothed with a soft, dark leopard skin, embroidered with arabesque of purple and silver.”

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“Moss was one of those things that, once one was aware of it, was everywhere. She knew its subspecies from botanical books: bearded moss, bog moss, grizzled emerald, twisted moss. Reindeer moss. Emerald tufted stubble. Toothless moss. Maidenhair. Wooly fringe. It was the earth's pantry, feeding its surroundings. Expansive green mother. Lavender recalled one species in her own garden that, to the touch, felt like her mother's hair. Mother-hair moss. In a floriography book, Lavender had read that moss stood for motherhood, charity. All the more to adore. She perused the ground, found: pocket moss pincushion bristle wasted-tea moss stubble-on-a-boy's-chin moss prickly oracle moss heart's tussle Oh, the tales moss told.”

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Book:The Apothecary's Garden
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