Astrid Lindgren Quotes

″‘There you see!’ said Pippi, removing the tin. ‘If I hadn’t had this one me, I would have fallen face first and knocked myself silly.’ ‘Yes, but,’ said Annika, ‘if you hadn’t had the tin on you, why, you’d never have tripped over the fence...‘”

“Her dress was curious indeed. Pippi had made it herself. It was supposed to have been blue, but as there hadn’t been quite enough blue cloth, Pippi had decided to add little red patches here and there. On her long thin legs she wore long stockings, one brown and the other black.”

″‘I happen to be a turnupstuffer, so of course I never have a free moment.’ ‘What did you say you were?’ asked Annika. ‘A turnupstuffer.’ ‘What’s that?’ asked Tommy. ‘Somebody who finds the stuff that turns up, if only you look of course. What else would it be?’ said Pippi...”

“In the orchard was a cottage, and in this cottage lived Pippi Longstocking. She was nine years old, and she lived all alone. She had neither mother nor father, which was really rather nice, for in this way there was no one to tell her to go to bed just when she was having the most fun, and no one to make her take cod-liver-oil when she felt like eating peppermints.”

“Pippi was a very remarkable child, and the most remarkable thing about her was her strength. She was so strong that in all the world there was no policeman as strong as she. She could have lifted a whole horse if she had wanted to.”

“My father is a Cannibal King; there aren’t many children with so fine a father!”

″‘Yes, anything that’s lying on the ground,’ said Pippi. A little further on, an old man lay sleeping on the lawn in front of his house. ‘That’s lying on the ground,’ said Pippi, ‘and we’ve found him. We’ll take him!‘”

″‘I don’t think you have particularly good manners with ladies,’ said Pippi. Then she lifted him high into the air with her strong arms. She carried him into a nearby birch tree, and hung him across a branch.”

“She always slept with her feet on the pillow and her head far down under the covers. ‘That’s the way they sleep in Guatemala,’ she explained. ‘And it’s the only right way to do it. This way, I can wiggle my toes while I’m sleeping, too.‘”

“Tommy never bit his nails, and always did what his mother asked. Annika never fussed when she didn’t get her own way, and she was always very properly dressed in freshly ironed cotton.”

“In a moment she returned, walking backwards. This was so she shouldn’t have to take the trouble to turn round when she went home.”

“Her hair was the same colour as a carrot, and was braided in two stiff pigtails that stood straight out from her head. Her nose was the shape of a very small potato, and was dotted with freckles.”

“Summer would not last forever; he knew it and Ronia knew it. But now they began to live as if it would, and as far as possible they pushed away all painful thoughts of winter.”

“Yes, she was lonely, but she missed no one in particular. Whom could she miss? Her days were full of life and pleasure, but they passed so quickly.”

“The fact was that Lovis liked to sing while she was having her baby. It made things easier, she insisted, and the baby would probably be all the jollier if it arrived on earth to the sound of a song.”

″‘A robber’s daughter, joy and gladness!’ shouted Matt. ‘A robber’s daughter- here she comes!‘”

“That Birk- after all, she had been pleased when she first saw him! And now, when she had met someone of her own age at last, why did it have to be a nasty little Borka robber.”

“I’m going to bed now, Lovis! Not to sleep. But to think and to curse, and woe better anyone who disturbs me!”

″‘That robber baby had better come soon,’ he said, ‘I’m old and rickety, and my robbing days will soon be over. It would be fine to see a new robber chief here before I’m finished.‘”

“But Matt did not want to hand over his daughter. He stood there gazing in admiration at her clear eyes, her little mouth, her black tufts of hair, her helpless hands, and he trembled with love. ‘You, baby, you’re already holding my robber heart in those little hands,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand it, but that’s how it is.‘”

“Wasn’t it lucky that Matt’s robbers were so much better, Ronia thought. She looked at them as they sat at the long table slurping up their soup. They were bearded and unwashed and noisy and wild, but no one was going to call them dirty devils in her hearing.”

″...Ronia had seen little more than this during her short life. She knew nothing of what lay outside Matt’s Fort. And one fine day Matt realized- however little he liked it- that the time had come. ‘Lovis,’ he said to his wife, ‘our child must learn what it’s like living in Matt’s Forest. Let her go!‘”

“He takes Rasmus to his home, where Oscar’s wife is already waiting for Oscar. The couple decides to adopt Rasmus as their child.”

“After running away from an orphanage, nine-year-old Rasmus finds the world a cold and unfriendly place until he meets an extraordinary tramp called ‘Paradise Oscar.”

“Oscar and Rasmus travel together to the country and collect money by playing music. One day a robbery takes place at a house Oscar and Rasmus are playing music.”

“So he tries to take matter in his own hands. He decides to leave the orphanage and find a family himself. On his way he meets the homeless man Oscar.”

“Dreaming of a home of his own, Rasmus runs away from the orphanage and meets Paradise Oscar, a remarkable tramp who takes Rasmus along on his travels, where they encounter adventure from both robbers and police.”

“Rasmus wasn’t sure whether hens should be wiped out or not, but he finally decided in favor of letting them live. Without hens there wouldn’t be eggs for Sunday breakfast and without eggs on Sunday it would be hard to tell what day it was.”

“That person was Miss Hawk. When such a thing happens, the only one who can keep from laughing is the one who gets drenched. Miss Hawk was far from laughing. But from the boys came muffled giggles, and from Rasmus a shrill, terrified laugh.

“Together they meet more adventure than they ever imagined, solve a mystery, catch the culprits, and find Rasmus a home.”

“Rasmus is living in an orphanage. He wants to be adopted and find a family. However, he realizes that only girls seem to get adopted.”

“The police later believes Oscar is responsible for the robbery. However, with the help of Oscar and Rasmus the police finally manages to catch the real robbers. Then Oscar reveals that he has a home.”

Karl never wants to be parted from him. But Karl is sick, and knows he’s going to die. To comfort him, Jonathan tells him stories of Nangiyala, the wonderful place he’ll be going to when he dies, and where he will wait until Jonathan is ready to join him there.

A cruel tyrant is determined to claim it as his own, and at his command is a terrible beast that is feared throughout the land.

There’s no one Karl Lion loves more than his older brother, Jonathan, who is brave, strong, and handsome - everything Karl believes he is not.

When the time comes, he finds Nangiyala just as wonderful as he’d imagined. However, Nangiyala is under threat.

“We live in the block next door to our old block now, in an apartment exactly like the old one, but it’s on the ground floor. We have been given some second-hand furniture by the parish, and the women have also given as some things.”

Karl must summon all of his courage to help his brother prepare for the battle that lies ahead . . .

“I swam around for quite a while and then I scrambled up on to the bridge and stood there, wet trough, the water running out of my clothes. My trousers were clinging to my legs, which was why I could see so clearly what had happened.”

Then the unthinkable happens . . . Jonathan is killed in an accident. Heartbroken, Karl longs for the day he’ll be reunited with his brother.

“There are some things you never forget. Never, ever, ever shall I forget that first evening in the kitchen at Knights Farm, how wonderful it was and what it felt like to lie talking to Jonathan just as before.”

“We were soon down in the village and went clattering down the village street on our horses. It wasn’t difficult to find out way because we could hear laughter and talk from a long way away. ”

“Lotta is quite confident that she knows how to ride a bike, but unlike her older brother and sister, she doesn’t have one.”

“On her fifth birthday, Lotta gets a picture book, a swing, and a shiny red handbag -- but no bicycle. ”

“However, Lotta’s neighbor Mrs. Berg keeps a bicycle in her shed, and she takes long afternoon naps. ”

“Lotta decides to act on her own. But that’s when she discovers that not all bicycles, stolen or otherwise, are equally easy to ride!”

“What a brave and determined little girl. Sure, now she expresses herself by crying and stealing (I’m sure it was justified in her mind that the bike wasn’t getting used anyway).”

“The determined Lotta’s many scrapes and her charming small-town surroundings are portrayed with a great deal of sympathetic detail.”

″ But she’s just turned five, after all! And it is her birthday, and she does appreciate all her other presents.”

“I just wonder how she’s going to turn out. She might go diva or bridezilla, but I doubt it.”

“Lotta is a 5 year old who wants to ride a bike like her older siblings. She hatches a plan to ride a bike on her birthday and suffers the consequences.”

“She’ll be strong enough to make her own way, but still as nice as her loving family and as her adopted granny, Mrs. Berg next door.”