Cesare Pavese: Doing

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Deep , Life , Cute

“We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)
Variant: The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.
Source: The Burning Brand: Diaries, 1935-1950

Life , Memory

“What world lies beyond that stormy sea I do not know, but every ocean has a distant shore, and I shall reach it.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

World , Distant , Sea

“We like to have work to do, so as to have the right to rest.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

“The courage to stand alone as if others didn't exist and think only of what you're doing. Not to get scared if people ignore you. You have to wait for years, have to die. Then after you're dead, if you're lucky, you become somebody.”

Cesare Pavese

Source: The house on the hill (1949), Chapter 8, p. 105

People , Courage , Thinking , Waiting

“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.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Life , Men

“But she didn't laugh. "When you have children," she said, staring at her glass, "you accept life. Do you accept life?"”

Cesare Pavese

Source: Among women only (1949), Chapter 9, p. 212

Life , Children

“It is stupid to grieve for the loss of a girl friend: you might never have met her, so you can do without her.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Stupidity , Girl , Loss

“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.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

World , Problem , Suffering

“There is an art in taking the whiplash of suffering full in the face, an art you must learn. Let each single attack exhaust itself; pain always makes single attacks, so that its bite may be more intense, more concentrated. And you, while its fangs are implanted and injecting their venom at one spot, do not forget to offer it another place where it can bite you, and so relieve the pain of the first.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Pain , Art , Suffering , Learning

“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."”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Time

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

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Love , God , People

“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.”

Cesare Pavese

Source: The Beach (1941), Chapter 4, p. 25

Boy

“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.”

Cesare Pavese

Source: The devil in the hills (1949), Chapter 11, p. 327

Way

“We do not free ourselves from something by avoiding it, but only by living though it.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

“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.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Life

“When you dream, you are an author, but you do not know how it will end.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Dreams

“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.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Decision , Time

“If it is true that one gets used to suffering, how is it that as the years go one always suffers more?
No, they are not mad, those people who amuse themselves, enjoy life, travel, make love, fight—they are not mad. We should like to do the same ourselves.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Love , Life , People , Making love

“It is not that things happen to each of us according to his fate, but that he interprets what has happened, if he has power to do so, according to his sense of his own destiny.”

Cesare Pavese

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Fate , Sense