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
Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing poetry and making love both involve personal expression and vulnerability, and it's uncertain if the pleasure is mutual.
This quote by Cesare Pavese highlights the intimate and subjective nature of both poetry and love. Just as one can pour their heart into a poem and wonder if it resonates with others, in love, one may question if their feelings and pleasures are reciprocated, underscoring the uncertainty and depth of emotional connections.
Themes
PoetryLoveExpressionPleasureEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
This quote would make a great addition to a poetry workshop to discuss the emotional risks involved in creative expression.
More from Cesare Pavese
All quotes →Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.
Cesare PaveseRead
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.
Cesare PaveseRead
There is mercy for everyone, except those who are bored with life.
Cesare PaveseRead
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.
Cesare PaveseRead
The cadence of suffering has begun. Every evening at dusk, my heart constricts until night has come.
Cesare PaveseRead
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A song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.
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You don't have to be singing specifically about things that are going on in your life, but because of the nature of music, because it is this incredibly emotional phenomenon, everything that you are feeling or experiencing is relayed in the music you put out.
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A play, after all, is a mystery. There's no narration. And as soon as there's no narration, it's open to interpretation. It must be interpreted. You don't have a choice... Each play can become many things.
Mike NicholsRead