from *The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950*
Cesare Pavese

"12 August (1940)

Love and poetry are mysteriously linked, because both
are a desire for self-expression, for talk and communication,
no matter with whom. An orgiastic desire for which there is
no substitute. Wine can induce a fictitious state of the same
sort, and, in fact, a drunkard talks and talks and talks."

"14 August (1940)

A man succeeds in completing a work only when his
qualities transcend that work."....

"10th October (1940)

There is an art in taking the whiplash of suffering
full in the face, an art you must learn. Let each single attack
exhaust itself; pain always makes single attacks, so that its
bite may be more intense, more concentrated. And you, while
its fangs are implanted and injecting their venom at one spot,
do not forget to offer it another place where it can bite you,
and so relieve the pain of the first. Real suffering is made up
of many thoughts. You can think only one thought at a time,
so learn how to dodge from one to another, and you will
relieve each pain in turn."

***********************************************************

"What I hear whispered, I whisper to you."


Ketih Waldrop
*Semiramis if I Remember
(Self-Portrait As Mask)*
Avec, 2001