"Of Sea and Words and Toil: The Poetry of Cesare Pavese by Olivier Burckhardt, Quadrant 48:7/8, p. 82–85"

“But she didn't laugh. "When you have children," she said, staring at her glass, "you accept life. Do you accept life?”

“When we read, we are not looking for new ideas, but to see our own thoughts given the seal of confirmation on the printed page. 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.”

“But all years are stupid. It's only when they're over that they become interesting.”

“He told them it was only dogs that bark and go for strange dogs, and men set on a dog because it suits them to show that they are still masters, but if the dogs weren't dumb animals they would come to an agreements with each other and start barking at them.”

“Great lovers will always be unhappy, because, for them, love is of supreme importance. Consequently they demand of their beloved the same intensity of thought as they have for her, otherwise they feel betrayed.”

“I was happy enough; I knew that during the night the whole city might go up in flames and all its people be killed, but the ravines, houses, and footpaths would wake in the morning calm and unchanged.”