Cesare Pavese was an Italian poet, novelist, translator and literary critic, who rose to prominence in the 20th century and is counted among the modern greats of Italian literature. His finished his school education at Turin and then he studied at the University of Turin. Pavese was a keen student of English literature and had also completed a thesis on the works of the famous poet Walt Whitman. Pavese was a communist and opposed the Fascist rule in Italy at the time and had courted arrest in 1935. Following the end of the Second World War, he became a member of the Italian Communist Party and became a contributor for the newspaper L’Unita published by the party. During that period, the majority of his work as a poet and novelist were published. Some of his noted works include ‘Your Villages’, ‘Hard Labour’, ‘August Holiday’, ‘The Comrade’, ‘The House on the Hill’, ‘Before the Cock Crows’, ‘The Devil in the Hills’ and short story volumes titled ‘Racconti’ among others. Pavese was without doubt not only a hugely accomplished and versatile literary figure but also a political figure, who delivered plenty of profound quotes through his works and life. Here is a collection of thoughts and quotations by Cesare Pavese on suffering, communication, reading, books, relationships, women, cleverness, money and women.
The great lovers will always be unhappy, because for them love is great and so they ask of their beloved the same intensity of thought that they have for her – otherwise they feel betrayed.
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.
Cesare Pavese
The only joy in the world is to begin.
Cesare Pavese
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.
Life is not a search for experience, but for ourselves. Having discovered our own fundamental level we realize that it conforms to our own destiny and we find peace.
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.
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