Cesare Pavese: Quotes about love

“No woman marries for money: they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in love with him.”

“One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love—any love—reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness.”

“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.”

“Love has the faculty of making two lovers seem naked, not in each other's sight, but in their own.”

“I realised that Nuto was quite right when he said that to live in a hovel or in a palace was one and the same thing, that blood is the same colour everywhere, and that everybody wants to be rich and in love and make their fortune.”

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

“Why does a man who is truly in love insist that this relationship must continue and be "lifelong"? Because life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic. Who would want to wake up halfway through an operation?”

“In fact a man in love or one consumed with hatred creates symbols for himself, as a superstitious man does, from a passion of conferring uniqueness on things or persons. A man who knows nothing of symbols is one of Dante's sluggards. This is why art mirrors itself in primitive rites or strong passions, seeking for symbols, revolving round the primitive taste for savagery, for what is irrational”

“Love is desire for knowledge.”

“See, you're like all the others. But don't you understand that we can't quarrel? We love each other. If I could hate him the way I hate myself, then of course I would abuse him. But neither of us deserves it. See?”

“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.”

“When a man mourns for someone who has played him false, it is not for love of her, but for his own humiliation at not having deserved her trust.”

“Love is the cheapest of religions.”

“Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared.”