Top 15 Cesare Pavese Quotes

The thing most feared in secret always happens.
I write: oh Thou, have mercy. And then?
All it takes is a little courage.
The more the pain grows clear and definite, the more the instinct for life asserts itself and the thought of suicide recedes.
It seemed easy when I thought of it. Weak women have done it. It takes humility, not pride.
All this is sickening.
Not words. An act. I won't write any more.

Suicides are timid murderers. Masochism instead of Sadism.

Nothing can be added to the rest, to the past. We always begin afresh.
One nail drives out another. But four nails make a cross.

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.

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.

It is not that things happen to each of us according to his fate, but that he interprets what has happened, if he has power to do so, according to his sense of his own destiny.

The problems that agitate one generation are exstinguished for the next, not because they have been solved but because the general lack of interest sweeps them away.

We like to have work to do, so as to have the right to rest.

There is only one pleasure—that of being alive. All the rest is misery.

Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.

Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd.

There is no finer revenge than that which others inflict on your enemy. Moreover, it has the advantage of leaving you the role of a generous man.

Certainly, to have a woman who waits at home for you, who will sleep with you, gives a warm feeling like having something you must say; it makes you glow, keeps you company, helps you to live.

How can you have confidence in a woman who will not risk entrusting her whole life to you, day and night?

We do not free ourselves from something by avoiding it, but only by living though it.