When death comes, it will have your eyes-
This death that is always with us,
From morning till evening, sleepless,
Deaf, like an old remorse
Or some senseless bad habit. Your eyes
Will be an empty word,
A stifled cry, a silence;
The way they appear to you each morning,
When you lean into yourself, alone,
In the mirror. Sweet hope,
That day we too shall know
That you are life and you are nothingness.
For each of us, death has a face.
When death comes, it will have your eyes.
It will be like quitting some bad habit,
Like seeing a dead face
Resurface out of the mirror,
Like listening to shut lips.
We’ll go down into the vortex in silence.
-Cesare Pavese
"Nous n’avons plus d’argent pour enterrer nos morts.
Le prêtre est là, marquant le pris des funérailles;
Et les corps étendus, troués par les mitrailles,
Atteendent un linceul, une croix, un remords."
"Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time."
Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was grey:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind,
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
"Words will always retain their power. Words are the means to meaning, and for those who listen, the enunciation of truth, "
"When people break their old selves, they embark upon a journey to find their new selves, and I find the best way to remove your lies is to make them the truth. This mass we call "The World" will keep turning, ignoring our individual desires... Say, do you know why snow is white? That's because it forgot what color it was a long time ago. Have you ever forgotten what color you are?
Evil can arise from the best of intentions and good can arise from the evilest of intentions. Does the fact that something would have happened eventually forgive the fact that someone made it happen out of spite? And what do results gained in the wrong way leave you in the end?
I think the truth is something covered up most of the time...." "My father was a writer. You would have like him. He used to say that artists use lies, to tell the truth while politicians used them to cover the truth up." "There is no reason a fake can't do what the real thing could, and it's possible for a fake to be more real than the real thing. Some might say the fake is of far greater value, in its deliberate attempt to be real, it’s more real than the real thing
"Simple things: joy, anger, sorrow, love? Think again about them
I hope someday you will understand them
I have cut, pasted, and spliced over and over again
Not knowing what being alive means
It's just the two of us no need to say anything more
As I witness the world with my cracked eyes, everything seems to shine
Certainty doesn't exist
You can see me reflected in your eyes, can't you?
The prove is probably empty of meaning; think about it
One by one, the lies are multiplying
I'm excited about a simple trick
My rusty head is shaking with a daydream in which you see yourself smiling
I don't know you yet, but I want to smile with you
Don't worry about answers, just do what you think is right
I love this world, a world that lacks everything
When the mechanical song resounds in the air, everything seems laughable
There's no past to be proud of, but isn't it beautiful to have a burning dream?
When I cross the sky, my dreams go forward with a view to the past
When I cross the sky, I am just beginning to bloom
When I cross the sky, I am born to die again and again
I will destroy the lies, and I will laugh in the future
I love this world, a world where only you can smile
The world I love with only a view you can give me
As I witness the world with my cracked eyes, everything seems to shine
Certainty doesn't exist
You can see me reflected in your eyes, can't you?"
“Your only problem, perhaps, is that you scream without letting yourself cry.”
"The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists... Inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes one quite irresistable. They live the poetry that they cannot write."
"Perhaps we don't love unreasonably because we think we have time or have to reckon with time. But what if we don't have time? Or what if time as we know it is irrelevant? Ah, if only the world were ending tomorrow. We could help each other very much"
"She's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, hers and mine are the same."
"I will love you forever; whatever happens. Until I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I'll drift about forever all of my atoms until I find you again"
“I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for their religion-- I have shuddered at it, I shudder no more. I could be martyred for my religion. Love is my religion and I could die for that. I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet.”
"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more, But you know what I am."
"Of course I'll hurt you. Of course you'll hurt me. Of course we'll hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring means accepting the risk of winter. To become the presence means accepting the risk of absence.
"Sorry about the blood in your mouth, I wish it was mine."
"One day I woke up and we no longer spoke the same language. I haven't heard from you since."
"Out of ignorance I called you my homeland, but I had forgotten that homelands are taken away"
"And what I really intended to say in the end remains unsaid"
to battles long neglected. Please, oh please, spare me.
I’m not prey to the power of kind
Cynara, as once I was."
-Horace: The Odes - Book 4