Quote

Literature is a defense against the attacks of life. It says to life: You can't deceive me. I know your habits, foresee and enjoy watching all your reactions, and steal your secret by involving you in cunning obstructions that halt your normal flow.

Cesare Pavese

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Cesare Pavese
Age: 41 †
Born: 1908
Born: September 9
Died: 1950
Died: August 27
Biographer
Journalist
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Editor
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Normal
Steal
Obstruction
Says
Habits
Foresee
Secret
Stealing
Deceive
Literature
Reactions
Halt
Enjoy
Defense
Involving
Life
Watching
Deceiving
Flow
Cunning
Habit
Attacks
Obstructions

More quotes by Cesare Pavese

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Don't you know that what happens to you once always happens again? You always react in the same way to the same thing. It's no accident when you make a mess. Then you do it again. It's called destiny.
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The real affliction of old age is remorse.
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The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.
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What we desire is not to possess a woman, but to be the only one to possess her.
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When you dream, you are an author, but you do not know how it will end.
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We care so little of other people than even Christianity urges us to do good for the love of God.
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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.
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The cadence of suffering has begun. Every evening at dusk, my heart constricts until night has come.
Cesare Pavese
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At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life by dying, you would escape this longing for death.
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Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared.
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We can all do good deeds, but very few of us can think good thoughts.
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If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.
Cesare Pavese
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It is not the actual enjoyment of pleasure that we desire. What we want is to test the futility of that pleasure, so as to be no longer obsessed by it.
Cesare Pavese
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I am the captain of my destiny, I do not abandon the ship in hard times, But, I do have sense enough not to go down with the ship.
Cesare Pavese
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Artists are the monks of the bourgeois state.
Cesare Pavese
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Don't mix wine and women.
Cesare Pavese
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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.
Cesare Pavese
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Human imagination is immensely poorer than reality.
Cesare Pavese
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Reality is a prison, where one vegetates and always will. All the rest - thought, action - is just a pastime, mental or physical. What counts then, is to come to grips with reality. The rest can go.
Cesare Pavese
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The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.
Cesare Pavese