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The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.

Cesare Pavese

Artists are the monks of the bourgeois state.
CESARE PAVESE

Artist Monk State
We never remember days, only moments.
CESARE PAVESE

Day Moments Remember
There is mercy for everyone, except those who are bored with life.
CESARE PAVESE

Bored Exception Life Mercy
You will hear words old and spent and useless like costumes left over from yesterday’s parties.
CESARE PAVESE

Costume Old Party Word Yourself
Because, to despise money, one must have plenty of it.
CESARE PAVESE

Money Oneself
Hate is always a clash between our spirit and someone else’s body.
CESARE PAVESE

Body Hate Spirit
To know the world, one must construct it.
CESARE PAVESE

Construction World
There is only one pleasure-that of being alive. All the rest is misery.
CESARE PAVESE

Alive Happiness Misery
A dream is a creation of the intelligence, the creator being present but not knowing how it will end.
CESARE PAVESE

Creation Dreams End Intelligence Present
Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world.
CESARE PAVESE

Luxury Pay World
The face of the night will be an old wound that reopens each evening, impassive and living. The distant silence will ache like a soul, mute, in the dark. We’ll speak to the night as it’s whispering softly.
CESARE PAVESE

Darkness Evening Face Night Old Soft Talk Whisper Wound
The slowness of time, for a man who knows nothing will happen, is brutal.
CESARE PAVESE

Brutal Man Slow Time Willing
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

Beyond Lying Ocean Reach World
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

Action Decision Reaction Repeat Result Time
The search for a new personality is futile; what is fruitful is the interest the old personality can take in new activities.
CESARE PAVESE

Activity Fruit Personality Search
The cadence of suffering has begun. Every evening at dusk, my heart constricts until night has come.
CESARE PAVESE

Beginning Heart Night Suffering

The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.

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The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.

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Popular Authors

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