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The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.

Cesare Pavese

There comes a day when, for someone who has persecuted us, we feel only indifference, a weariness at his stupidity. Then we forgive him.
CESARE PAVESE

Day Feeling Forgiveness Himself Stupidity
There is something indecent in words .
CESARE PAVESE

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

Luxury Pay World
The real affliction of old age is remorse.
CESARE PAVESE

Affliction Age Old Reality
Great lovers will always be unhappy, because, for them, love is of supreme importance. Consequently they demand of their beloved the same intensity of thought as they have for her, otherwise they feel betrayed.
CESARE PAVESE

Greatness Happiness Important Intensity Love Lover
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
There is only one pleasure-that of being alive. All the rest is misery.
CESARE PAVESE

Alive Happiness Misery
There is mercy for everyone, except those who are bored with life.
CESARE PAVESE

Bored Exception Life Mercy
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
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

Clear Conscience Spirit Suffering Thinking World
The only reason why we are always thinking of our own ego is that we have to live with it more continuously than with anyone else’s.
CESARE PAVESE

Continue Ego Live Reason Thinking
But here’s the worst part: the trick to life lies in hiding from those we hold most dear how much they mean to is; if not, we’d lose them.
CESARE PAVESE

Hide Life Lose People Trick Worst
We like to have work to do, so as to have the right to rest.
CESARE PAVESE

Rest Right Work
The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.
CESARE PAVESE

Descend Escape Sound
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.
CESARE PAVESE

Destiny Discover Experience Life Ourselves Peace Search
The slowness of time, for a man who knows nothing will happen, is brutal.
CESARE PAVESE

Brutal Man Slow Time Willing

The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.

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The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.

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