Cesare Pavese

Meanwhile we arrived at our lane and the sight of the olive tree rubbed me the wrong way. I began to see that no spot is less habitable than a place where one has been happy.

Cesare Pavese

Men who have a tempestuous inner life and do not seek to give vent to it by talking or writing are simply men who have no tempestuous inner life. Give company to a lonely man and he will talk more than anyone.

Cesare Pavese

Misfortunes cannot suffice to make a fool into an intelligent man.

Cesare Pavese

Narrating incredible things as though they were real old system; narrating realities as though they were incredible the new.

Cesare Pavese

No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.

Cesare Pavese

No woman marries for money; they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in love with him first.

Cesare Pavese

Not believing in anything is also a religion.

Cesare Pavese

One must look for one thing only, to find many.

Cesare Pavese

One stops being a child when one realizes that telling one’s trouble does not make it any better.

Cesare Pavese

People who don’t know any better will always be in the dark because the power lies in the hands of men who take good care that ordinary folk don’t understand, in the hands, that is, of the government, of the clerical party, of the capitalists.

Cesare Pavese