Quotes from Luigi Pirandello

Scelse il libro da portarsi, prese il quaderno degli appunti, e via.

Eu já não tenho essa necessidade, pois morro a cada instante, eu, e renasço novo e sem recordações: vivo e inteiro, já não dentro de mim, mas em cada coisa fora de mim.

Yet everything that may be imagined of us is really possible, even though it may not be true for us. True for us? Others laugh. It is true for them. So true is it, understand, that if you do not hold fast to that reality which is bestowed upon you as your own, they are in a position to bring you to realize that the reality which they confer upon you is truer than any of your own.

L'amore che è la cosa piú viva e piú santa che ci sia dato provare sulla terra?

THE STEP-DAUGHTER: At present, we are unknown to the public. Tomorrow, you will act us as you wish, treating us in your own manner. But do you really want to see drama, do you want to see it flash out as it really did?

If I was not for others what up to then I had believed myself to be to myself, what was I?

Each on his own assumed the truth as such and appropriated it somehow to fill his solitude and to give some kind of substance, day after day, to his life.

I feel that my life is devoid of meaning and I no longer see any reason in the acts I perform or the words I say, and it astonishes me that other people can move about outside this nightmare of mine... that they can act and speak.

The faculty of deluding one's self that today's reality is the only true one, if on the one hand it affords us a support, on the other hand hurls us into a bottomless void, for the reason that today's reality is destined to discover itself an illusion tomorrow. And life knows no conclusion. It cannot know any. If tomorrow there were to be a conclusion, all would be over.

È molto più facile essere un eroe che un galantuomo. Eroi si può essere una volta tanto; galantuomini, si dev'esser sempre.

Whoever understands the game of life can no longer fool himself, but if you cannot fool yourself, you can no longer derive any pleasure or enjoyment from life. And so it goes, my work is full of compassion, bitter compassion for all those who fool themselves. But this compassion cannot help but be followed by ferocious derision of a destiny that condemns man to deception. And this succinctly is the reason for the bitterness of my art, and also my life.

The taste of life, the taste for life. That is never satisfied. That never can be satisfied, because life even as we are in the very act of living it, is so ravenously hungering after itself, that it never lets itself be fully tasted. The taste for life comes to us from the past, from the memories that hold us bound, but bound to what? To this folly of ours? To this mass of vexations? To so many stupid illusions? To so many insipid occupations?

Ed ecco perché lui se ne stava tutto il giorno in campagna. Solo, tra gli alberi e con la distesa sterminata del mare sotto gli occhi, come da un'infinita lontananza, nel fruscio lungo e lieve di quegli alberi, nel borboglio cupo e lento di quel mare s'era abituato a sentire la vanità di tutto e il tedio angoscioso della vita.

Who was I? Was I, I?

Ti compiango! Ma tu devi far la tua parte, com'io la mia. Il giuoco è questo. L'ha capito finanche lei! Ciascuno la sua, fino all'ultimo; e stai pur sicuro che dal mio perno io non mi muovo, avvenga che può. Mi vedo e vi vedo giocare, e mi diverto. Basta.

Because a character has really a life of his own, marked with his especial characteristics; for which reason he is always "somebody." But a man—I'm not speaking of you now—may very well be "nobody.

se un rosignolo dà via le penne della coda, può dire: mi resta il dono del canto; ma se le fate dar via a un pavone, le penne della coda, che gli resta?

Io volevo esser solo in un modo affatto insolito, nuovo. Tutt'al contrario di quel che pensate voi: cioè senza me e appunto con un estraneo attorno.

But only in order to know if you, as you really are now, see yourself as you once were with all the illusions that were yours then, with all the things both inside and outside of you as they seemed to you—as they were then indeed for you.

Quel che di fluido, di vivente, di mobile, di oscuro è nella realtà, sissignori, sfugge alla ragione.

Il était désormais inutile d'avoir une valeur pour soi. Aucune vérité ne subsistait, puisque aucune chose en soi n'était vraie. Chacun la considérait comme telle, à sa manière, pour en peupler son désert, et pour donner une consistance quelconque, jour par jour, à sa vie.

There is one point, however, on which I wish you would give me a little enlightenment, and that is, how you can rest quietly when you reflect that there is someone who is doing his utmost to persuade others that you are as he sees you, endeavoring firmly to establish you in the estimation of others in accordance with his judgment of you, and to prevent others from seeing and judging you in any other manner?

Quanti conservano la beata regolarità delle esperienze non possono immaginare quali cose possono essere reali o verosimili per chi viva fuori d'ogni regola, come appunto quell'uomo lí.

The man, the writer, the instrument of the creation will die, but his creation does not die. And to live for ever, it does not need to have extraordinary gifts or to be able to work wonders. Who was Sancho Panza?