Cesare Pavese Quotations

When a man mourns for someone who has played him false, it is not for love of her, but for his own humiliation at not having deserved her trust.

Maybe it's better like this, better that everything should go up in a blaze of dry grass and that people should begin again.

You cannot insult a man more atrociously than by refusing to believe he is suffering .

Anchorites used to ill-treat themselves in the way they did, so that the common people would not begrudge them the beatitude they would enjoy in heaven.

When a woman marries she belongs to another man; and when she belongs to another man there is nothing more you can say to her.

There is nothing fine about being a child: it is fine, when we are old, too look back to when we were children .

The world, the future, is now within you as your past, as experience, skill in technique, and the rich, everlasting mystery is found to be childish you that, at the time, you made no effort to possess.

The act the act must not be a revenge. It must be a calm, weary renunciation, a closing of accounts, a private, rhythmic deed. The last remark.

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.

But all years are stupid. It's only when they're over that they become interesting.