Cesare Pavese

But all years are stupid. It's only when they're over that they become interesting.

— Cesare Pavese

Reality is a prison, where one vegetates and always will...

— Cesare Pavese

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

— Cesare Pavese

You've got to understand life, understand it when you're young.

— Cesare Pavese

The richness of life lies in the memories we have forgotten.

— Cesare Pavese

But the real, tremendous truth is this: suffering serves no purpose whatever.

— Cesare Pavese

“Ogni nuovo mattino uscirò per le strade cercando i colori.”

— Cesare Pavese

Because, to despise money, one must have plenty of it.

— Cesare Pavese

Nowadays, suicide is just a way of disappearing. It is carried out timidly, quietly, and falls flat. It is no longer an…

— Cesare Pavese

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

— Cesare Pavese

Will power is only the tensile strength of one's own disposition. One cannot increase it by a single ounce.

— Cesare Pavese

A man is never completely alone in this world. At the worst, he has the company of a boy, a youth, and…

— Cesare Pavese

A love thought: I love you so much that I could wish I had been born your brother, or had brought you…

— Cesare Pavese

The only reason why we are always thinking of our own ego is that we have to live with it more continuously…

— Cesare Pavese

The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies. The fearful thing about it is that, not knowing…

— Cesare Pavese

The act the act must not be a revenge. It must be a calm, weary renunciation, a closing of accounts, a private,…

— Cesare Pavese

If it is true that one gets used to suffering, how is it that as the years go one always suffers more?…

— Cesare Pavese

The world, the future, is now within you as your past, as experience, skill in technique, and the rich, everlasting mystery is…

— Cesare Pavese

Men who have a tempestuous inner life and do not seek to give vent to it by talking or writing are simply…

— Cesare Pavese

Don't you know that what happens to you once always happens again? You always react in the same way to the same…

— Cesare Pavese

Dawn's faint breath breathes with your mouth at the ends of empty streets. Gray light your eyes, sweet drops of dawn on…

— Cesare Pavese

Literature is a defense against the attacks of life. It says to life: You can't deceive me. I know your habits, foresee…

— Cesare Pavese

In general, the man who is readily disposed to sacrifice himself is one who does not know how else to give meaning…

— Cesare Pavese

No matter how much a young man likes to think for himself, he is always trying to model himself on some abstract…

— Cesare Pavese

Hate is always a clash between our spirit and someone else's body.

— Cesare Pavese

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

— Cesare Pavese

Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.

— Cesare Pavese

What we desire is not to possess a woman, but to be the only one to possess her.

— Cesare Pavese

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

— Cesare Pavese

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

— Cesare Pavese

There is mercy for everyone, except those who are bored with life.

— Cesare Pavese

Death is repose, but the thought of death disturbs all repose.

— Cesare Pavese

We can all do good deeds, but very few of us can think good thoughts.

— Cesare Pavese

The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.

— Cesare Pavese

Suicides are timid murderers. Masochism instead of Sadism.

— Cesare Pavese

Life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic.

— Cesare Pavese

What is to come will emerge only after long suffering, long silence.

— Cesare Pavese

Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world.

— Cesare Pavese

I spent the whole evening sitting before a mirror to keep myself company.

— Cesare Pavese

It is not that things happen to each of us according to his fate, but that he interprets what has happened, if…

— Cesare Pavese