I spent the whole evening sitting before a mirror to keep myself company.
CESARE PAVESEI spent the whole evening sitting before a mirror to keep myself company.
CESARE PAVESELove has the faculty of making two lovers seem naked, not in each other’s sight, but in their own.
CESARE PAVESEThings are revealed through the memories we have of them. Remembering a thing means seeing it only then for the first time.
CESARE PAVESEA 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 PAVESELife without smoking is like the smoke without the roast.
CESARE PAVESEYou don’t remember days, you remember moments.
CESARE PAVESEI am the captain of my destiny, I do not abandon the ship in hard times, But, I do have sense enough not to go down with the ship.
CESARE PAVESEMisfortunes cannot suffice to make a fool into an intelligent man.
CESARE PAVESEYou will hear words old and spent and useless like costumes left over from yesterday’s parties.
CESARE PAVESEWaiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.
CESARE PAVESEA dream is a creation of the intelligence, the creator being present but not knowing how it will end.
CESARE PAVESEWhy 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?
CESARE PAVESELife 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 PAVESEThe only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment.
CESARE PAVESEThe 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 PAVESEWe do not free ourselves from something by avoiding it, but only by living though it.
CESARE PAVESE