Explore Quotes by Cesare Pavese

The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.

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

Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.

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

No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.

We do not remember days, we remember moments.

Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends

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.

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

The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.

You need a village, if only for the pleasure of leaving it. A village means that you are not alone, knowing that in the people, the trees, the earth, there is something that belongs to you, waiting for you when you are not there.

The only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment.

Reality is a prison, where one vegetates and always will. All the rest - thought, action - is just a pastime, mental or physical. What counts then, is to come to grips with reality. The rest can go.

Woman gives herself as a prize to the weak and as a prop to the strong and no man ever has what he should.

We never remember days, only moments.

Suffering is by no means a privilege, a sign of nobility, a reminder of God. Suffering is a fierce, bestial thing, commonplace, uncalled for, natural as air. It is intangible; no one can grasp it or fight against it; it dwells in time - is the same thing as time; if it comes in fits and starts, that is only so as to leave the sufferer more defenseless during the moments that follow, those long moments when one relives the last bout of torture and waits for the next.

To choose a hardship for ourselves is our only defense against that hardship. This is what is meant by accepting suffering. Those who, by their very nature, can suffer completely, utterly, have an advantage. That is how we can disarm the power of suffering, make it our own creation, our own choice; submit to it. A justification for suicide.

At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life; by dying, you would escape this longing for death.

Literature is a defense against the attacks of life. It says to life: You can't deceive me. I know your habits, foresee and enjoy watching all your reactions, and steal your secret by involving you in cunning obstructions that halt your normal flow.

The search for a new personality is futile; what is fruitful is the interest the old personality can take in new activities.

One must look for one thing only, to find many.