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.
Cesare PaveseRead
The cadence of suffering has begun. Every evening at dusk, my heart constricts until night has come.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the deep emotional turmoil associated with suffering that intensifies as night approaches.
Cesare Pavese's quote reflects the psychological and emotional experience of suffering, which he describes as a rhythmic pattern that becomes more pronounced during the transition from day to night. The imagery of the heart constricting at dusk signifies a daily reminder of pain, encapsulating the profound impact of sorrow on the human spirit as darkness envelops the day, suggesting that suffering can feel like a relentless cycle that one must endure.
Themes
SufferingHeartDuskPainEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the emotional effects of loss.
More from Cesare Pavese
All quotes →Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.
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Dawn's faint breath breathes with your mouth at the ends of empty streets. Gray light your eyes, sweet drops of dawn on dark hills. Your steps and breath like the wind of dawn smother houses. The city shudders, Stones exhale— you are life, an awakening. Star lost in the light of dawn, trill of the breeze, warmth, breath— the night is done. You are light and morning.
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There is mercy for everyone, except those who are bored with life.
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One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love - any love - reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness.
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Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference. Perhaps this is why we always love madly someone who treats us with indifference.
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