Cesare Pavese Quotes
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But all years are stupid. It's only when they're over that they become interesting.
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A love thought: I love you so much that I could wish I had been born your brother, or had brought you into the world myself.
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Not believing in anything is also a religion.
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I've discovered nothing. but do you remember how much we talked when we were boys? We talked just for the fun of it. We knew very well it was only talk, but still we enjoyed it.
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Men who have a tempestuous inner life and do not seek to give vent to it by talking or writing are simply men who have no tempestuous inner life. Give company to a lonely man and he will talk more than anyone.
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Now that I've seen what war is ... I know that everybody, if one day it should end, ought to ask himself: "And what shall we make of the fallen? Why are they dead?" I wouldn't know what to say. Not now, at any rate. Nor does it seem to me that the others know. Perhaps only dead know, and only for them is the war really over.
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We commit two wrongs when we fail to right a wrong.
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A dream is a creation of the intelligence, the creator being present but not knowing how it will end.
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But the real, tremendous truth is this: suffering serves no purpose whatever.
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We do not remember days, we remember moments.
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It's pointless to cry. One is born and dies alone...
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There comes a day when, for someone who has persecuted us, we feel only indifference, a weariness at his stupidity. Then we forgive him.
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Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.
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The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.
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Life without smoking is like the smoke without the roast.
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Will power is only the tensile strength of one's own disposition. One cannot increase it by a single ounce.
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Human imagination is immensely poorer than reality.
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Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.
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Death is repose, but the thought of death disturbs all repose.
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Hate is always a clash between our spirit and someone else's body.
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I spent the whole evening sitting before a mirror to keep myself company.
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It is stupid to grieve for the loss of a girl friend: you might never have met her, so you can do without her.
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Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared.
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To choose a hardship for ourselves is our only defense against that hardship. This is what is meant by accepting suffering. Those who, by their very nature, can suffer completely, utterly, have an advantage. That is how we can disarm the power of suffering, make it our own creation, our own choice; submit to it. A justification for suicide.