Cesare Pavese Quotes
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The problems that agitate one generation are exstinguished for the next, not because they have been solved but because the general lack of interest sweeps them away.
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It is not the actual enjoyment of pleasure that we desire. What we want is to test the futility of that pleasure, so as to be no longer obsessed by it.
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Life is not a search for experience, but for ourselves. Having discovered our own fundamental level we realize that it conforms to our own destiny and we find peace.
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We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.
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We must never say, even in fun, that we are disheartened, because someone might take us at our word.
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At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life; by dying, you would escape this longing for death.
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Literature is a defense against the attacks of life. It says to life: You can't deceive me. I know your habits, foresee and enjoy watching all your reactions, and steal your secret by involving you in cunning obstructions that halt your normal flow.
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A consoling thought: what matters is not what we do, but the spirit in which we do it. Others suffer too; so much so that there is nothing in the world but suffering; the problem is simply to keep a clear conscience.
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The only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment.
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Don't you know that what happens to you once always happens again? You always react in the same way to the same thing. It's no accident when you make a mess. Then you do it again. It's called destiny.
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The search for a new personality is futile; what is fruitful is the interest the old personality can take in new activities.
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A decision, an action, are infallible omens of what we shall do another time, not for any vague, mystic, astrological reason but because they result from an automatic reaction that will repeat itself.
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It had to happen to you, to concentrate your whole life on one point, and then discover that you can do anything except live at that point.
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When writing poetry, it is not that produces a bright idea, but the bright idea that kindles the fire of.
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But here's the worst part: the trick to life lies in hiding from those we hold most dear how much they mean to is; if not, we'd lose them.
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The world, the future, is now within you as your past, as experience, skill in technique, and the rich, everlasting mystery is found to be childish you that, at the time, you made no effort to possess.
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Narrating incredible things as though they were real old system; narrating realities as though they were incredible the new.
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Work alone isn't enough for me and mine; we know how to break our backs, but the great dream Of my fathers was to be good at doing nothing.
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Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference. Perhaps this is why we always love madly someone who treats us with indifference.
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Love is the cheapest of religions.
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There is only one pleasure - that of being alive. All the rest is misery.
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But all years are stupid. It's only when they're over that they become interesting.
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You dont remember days, you remember moments
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A corpse is what's left after waking too often.