I don't believe it can end. Now that I've seen what war is, what civil war is, I know that everybody, if one day it should end, ought to ask himself:… - Cesare Pavese

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I don't believe it can end. Now that I've seen what war is, what civil war is, I know that everybody, if one day it should end, ought to ask himself: "And what shall we make of the fallen? Why are they dead?" I wouldn't know what to say. Not now, at any rate. Nor does it seem to me that the others know. Perhaps only dead know, and only for them is the war really over.

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About Cesare Pavese

Cesare Pavese (9 September, 1908 – 27 August 1950) was an Italian novelist, poet, short-story writer, literary critic and translator.

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Additional quotes by Cesare Pavese

When we read, we are not looking for new ideas, but to see our own thoughts given the seal of confirmation on the printed page. The words that strike us are those that awake an echo in a zone we have already made our own—the place where we live—and the vibration enables us to find fresh starting points within ourselves.

War makes men barbarous because, to take part in it, one must harden oneself against all regret, all appreciation of delicacy and sensitive values. One must live as if those values did not exist, and when the war is over one has lost the resilience to return to those values.

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