Cesare Pavese: Trending quotes (page 4)

“A dream is a creation of the intelligence, the creator being present but not knowing how it will end.”

“We were at the age when a friend's conversation seems like oneself talking, when one shares a life in common the way I still think, bachelor though I am, some married couples are able to live.”

“We were very young. I don't think I ever slept that year, but I had a friend who slept even less than I did. Some mornings you could see him strolling up and down in front of the station when the first trains were arriving and leaving.”

“When one has made a mistake, one says. "Another time I shall know what to do," when one should say is: "I already know what I shall really do another time."”

“A man succeeds in completing a work only when his qualities transcend that work.”

“The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies. The fearful thing about it is that, not knowing what truth may be, we can still recognize lies.”

“When a woman marries she belongs to another man; and when she belongs to another man there is nothing more you can say to her.”

“He told them it was only dogs that bark and go for strange dogs, and men set on a dog because it suits them to show that they are still masters, but if the dogs weren't dumb animals they would come to an agreements with each other and start barking at them.”

“We care so little of other people than even Christianity urges us to do good for the love of God.”

“The man of action is not the headstrong fool who rushes into danger with no thought for himself, but the man who puts into practice the things he knows.”

“We want Realism's wealth of experience and Symbolism's depth of feeling. All art is a problem of balance between two opposites.”

“I don't believe it can end. Now that I've seen what war is, what civil 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.”

“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.”

“Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd.”

“Consider this point carefully: nowadays, suicide is just a way of disappearing. It is carried out timidly, quietly, and falls flat. It is no longer an action, only a submission.”

“Since God could have created a freedom in which there could be no evil (i. e., a state when men were happy and free and certain not to sin), it follows that He wished evil to exist. But evil offends Him. A commonplace case of masochism.”

“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.”

“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.”

“There's nothing that tastes of death more than the summer sun, the powerful light, exuberant nature. You sniff the air and listen to the woods and know that the plants and animals don't give a damn about you. Everything lives and consumes itself. Nature is death…”