By Astrid Lindgren. Find the book.
Up on Karlson’s verandah there were ten buns in a row, looking quite delicious.
‘Honestly paid for, too,’ said Karlson. ‘We’ll share them out fairly, seven for you and seven for me.’
‘That’s no good,’ said Midge. ‘Seven and seven are fourteen and there are only ten buns here.’
Karlson quickly made seven buns into a heap.
‘Here are mine, anyway,’ he said, placing a pudgy hand over the heap of buns. ‘You go in for such ridiculous arithmetic at school,’ he said. ‘But there’s no need for me to suffer because of it. I said we would have seven each, and these are mine.’
— pp. 47-48
Midge had no idea what inspiration was, but Karlson explained. It was a sort of illness which attacked all painters of pictures so that they just had to paint and paint and paint instead of sewing ghost costumes.
— p. 71
‘Have you got a new steam-engine?’ asked Karlson. ‘Do you remember what fun we had when we blew up the last one? Haven’t you got a new one yet, so that we can do it again?’
— p. 13
‘I say, Karlson, you don’t want to be on TV, do you?’
Karlson shook his head violently.
‘In that box there? Me? Not as long as I have my health and can defend myself.’
— p. 67
… Midge went over to see what Karlson had been painting.
‘Portrait of my Rabbits’ was written along the bottom, but what Karlson had painted was a little red animal which looked more like a fox.
‘Isn’t that a fox?’ asked Midge.
Karlson came swooping down and landed beside him. He put his head on one side and peered at his picture.
‘Yes, certainly it’s a fox, without doubt, it is a fox painted by the World’s Best Fox Painter.’
‘Yes, but,’ said Midge, ‘it says “portrait of my rabbits” … Where are the rabbits?’
‘They’re inside the fox,’ said Karlson.
— p. 74
You should be ashamed of yourselves, boys! There are thousands of children in this world who would give anything for a little stew like that.’
Karlson put his hand in his pocket and took out a notebook and pencil.
‘Would you give me the names and addresses of two of them?’ he said.
But Miss Black muttered and wouldn’t give him any addresses.
‘The whole lot of them must be little firemen’s children, I should think,’ said Karlson, ‘they’ve probably never eaten anything but fire and brimstone.’
— p. 118
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Midge, “were you asleep?” “You should have asked me that before you woke me up. You who always sleep like a log, you don’t know what it’s like for us poor folk who can seldom get a wink of sleep. When we have dropped off for once, one might expect that one’s friends would keep absolutely quiet and hold their breath, instead of starting to clang bells as if a fire had broken out!”
Midge thought this sounded very miserable.
“Do you really sleep so badly?” he asked.
Karlson nodded grimly.
“Worse than badly,” said Karlson. “That is, I do sleep like a stone at night and in the morning too, but it’s worst in the afternoons. I just lie there, tossing and turning.”
— p. 78