Cesare Pavese citations

Page 3

“Attendre est encore une occupation. C'est ne rien attendre qui est terrible.”

“L’art est la preuve que la vie ne suffit pas.”

“Tu seras aimé le jour où tu pourras montrer tes faiblesses sans que l'autre s'en serve pour affirmer sa force.”

“Il y a une chose plus triste que d'avoir raté ses idéaux, c'est de les avoir réalisés.”

“Il arrive qu'une femme rencontre une épave et qu'elle décide d'en faire un homme sain. Elle y réussit parfois. Il arrive qu'une femme rencontre un homme sain et décide d'en faire une épave. Elle y réussit toujours.”

“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…”

“All our "most sacred affections" are merely prosaic habit.”

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

“At a certain point the two cigars fell at our feet in the snow and then we heard them whispering up there and moving about and then came a sigh louder than the others. When we looked up we could see nothing but the withered vine leaves and thousands of stars in the frosty sky. Nuto said "The blackguards" through his clenched teeth.”

“The only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment. When this sensation is lacking—as when one is in prison, or ill, or stupid, or when living has become a habit—one might as well be dead.”

“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?”

“It wasn't a country where a man could settle down and rest his head and say to the others, "Here I am for good or ill. For good or ill let me leave in peace."”

“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.”

“I was happy enough; I knew that during the night the whole city might go up in flames and all its people be killed, but the ravines, houses, and footpaths would wake in the morning calm and unchanged.”

“In general, the man who is readily disposed to sacrifice himself is one who does not know how else to give meaning to his life.
The profession of enthusiasm is the most sickening of all insincerities.”

“How can you have confidence in a woman who will not risk entrusting her whole life to you, day and night?”