“Things are revealed through the memories we have of them. Remembering a thing means seeing it—only then—for the first time.”

— Cesare Pavese, This Business of Living (entry of 28 January 1948)

About Cesare Pavese

1908 – 1950

Italian poet and novelist, author of the diary "This Business of Living".

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

“Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly. Activity makes the hours short and the years long.”

“If all this were true, how easy it would be to understand people.”

“A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth.”

“Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and having people in them, acting.”

“The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations.”

“The long, dull monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather.”

“My hair is grey, but not with years, nor grew it white in a single night, as men's have grown from sudden fears.”

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.”