Luigi Pirandello Quotes

No name. No memory today of yesterday's name; of today's name, tomorrow. If the name is the thing; if a name in us is the concept of every thing placed outside of us; and without a name you don't have the concept, and the thing remains in us as if blind, indistinct and undefined: well then, let each carve this name that I bore among men, a funeral epigraph, on the brow of that image in which I appeared to him, and then leave it in peace, and let there be no more talk about it. It is fitting for the dead. For those who have concluded. I am alive and I do not conclude. Life does not conclude. And life knows nothing of names. This tree, tremulous pulse of new leaves. I am this tree. Tree, cloud; tomorrow book or wind: the book I read, the wind I drink. All outside, wandering. ~ Luigi Pirandello

I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve to you. ~ Luigi Pirandello

The man, the writer, the instrument of the creation will die, but his creation does not die. ~ Luigi Pirandello

all these intellectual complications make me sick, disgust me - all this philosophy that uncovers the beast in man, and then seeks to save him, excuse him ~ Luigi Pirandello

There is someone who is living my life. And I know nothing about him. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Life is little more than a loan shark: It exacts a very high rate of interest for the few pleasures it concedes ~ Luigi Pirandello

Blind yourself, for I am blind. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Here is a piece of earth. If you stand staring at it and doing nothing, what does the earth yield? Nothing. Just like a woman. ~ Luigi Pirandello

How can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. ~ Luigi Pirandello

And the air is new. And everything, instant by instant, is as it is, preparing to appear. [ ... ] This is the only way I can live now. To be reborn moment by moment. [ ... ] I die at every instant, and I am reborn, new and without memories: live and whole, no longer inside myself, but in every thing outside. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Every true man, sir, who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants does not live for the sake of living, without knowing how to live; but he lives so as to give a meaning and a value of his own to life. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Life is a very sad piece of buffoonery, because we have .. the need to fool ourselves continuously by the spontaneous creation of a reality .. which, from time to time, reveals itself to be vain and illusory. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Was it really my own, that image glimpsed in a flash? Am I really like that, from the outside, when - all the while living - I do not think of myself? For others, then, I am that stranger whom I surprised in a mirror; I am he and not the I whom I know; I am that one there whom I myself at first, upon becoming aware of him, did not recognize. I am that stranger whom I am unable to see living except like that, in a thoughtless second. A stranger whom others alone can see and know, not I. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Life is full of strange absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true. ~ Luigi Pirandello

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? ~ Luigi Pirandello

Ours is an immutable reality which should make you shudder when you approach us if you are really conscious of the fact that your reality is a mere transitory and fleeting illusion, taking this form today and that tomorrow, ~ Luigi Pirandello

I hate symbolic art in which the presentation loses all spontaneous movement in order to become a machine, an allegory
a vain and misconceived effort because the very fact of giving an allegorical sense to a presentation clearly shows that we have to do with a fable which by itself has no truth either fantastic or direct; it was made for the demonstration of some moral truth. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Those who understood, in fact, say: 'I mustn't do this, I mustn't do that,' so as not to commit some stupidity or other! Splendid! But at a certain point we realize that all life is stupidity; so tell me yourself what it means never to have done anything foolish. At the very least it means you have never lived. ~ Luigi Pirandello

A character, sir, may always ask a man who he is. Because a character has really a life of his own, marked with his special characteristics; for which reason he is always "somebody." But a man - I'm not speaking of you now - may very well be 'nobody'. ~ Luigi Pirandello

If only we could see in advance all the harm that can come from the good we think we are doing. ~ Luigi Pirandello

The facts are to blame, my friend. We are all imprisoned by facts: I was born, I exist. ~ Luigi Pirandello

The secret of living is to find a pivot, the pivot of a concept on which you can make your stand. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Inevitably we construct ourselves. Let me explain. I enter this house and immediately I become what I have to become, what I can become: I construct myself. That is, I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you. And, of course, you do the same with me. ~ Luigi Pirandello

It is much easier to be a hero than a gentleman. ~ Luigi Pirandello

... my real love has always been the sleep that rescued me by allowing me to dream. ~ Luigi Pirandello

The more arms and legs [children] we have, the richer we are. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Buffoons, buffoons! One can play any tune on them! ~ Luigi Pirandello

Woman - for example, look at her case! She turns tantalizing inviting glances on you. You seize her. No sooner does she feel herself in your grasp than she closes her eyes. It is a sign of her mission, the sign by which she says to man: "Blind yourself, for I am blind." ~ Luigi Pirandello

Women are like dreams, they are never the way you would like to have them. ~ Luigi Pirandello

One cannot choose what he writes - one can only choose to face it. ~ Luigi Pirandello

You too must not count too much on your reality as you feel it today, since like yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Not one of us can lie or pretend. We're all fixed in good faith in a certain concept of ourselves. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Personally, I don't give a rap for documents; for the truth in my eyes is not in them but in the mind. ~ Luigi Pirandello

A fact is like a sack which won't stand up if it's empty. In order that it may stand up, one has to put into it the reason and sentiment which caused it to exist. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Fate, fortune, chance: all snares of life. You want to be, eh? There's this catch: in abstract, you cannot just be. The being must be trapped in a form, and for some time it has to stay in it, here or there, this way or that. And everything, as long as it lasts, bears the penalty of its form, the penalty of being this way and no longer being able to be otherwise. ~ Luigi Pirandello

THE FATHER: But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here? In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Thus, sir, you see when faith is lacking, it becomes impossible to create certain states of happiness, for we lack the necessary humility. Vaingloriously, we try to substitute ourselves for this faith, creating thus for the rest of the world a reality which we believe after their fashion, while, actually, it doesn't exist. ~ Luigi Pirandello

For man never reasons so much and becomes so introspective as when he suffers ; since he is anxious to get at the cause of his sufferings, to learn who has produced them, and whether it is just or unjust that he should have to bear them. On the other hand, when he is happy, he takes his happiness as it comes and doesn't analyse it, just as if happiness were his right. ~ Luigi Pirandello

A fact is like a sack - it won't stand up if it's empty. To make it stand up, first you have to put in it all the reasons and feelings that caused it in the first place. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Phantoms in general are nothing more than trifling disorders of the spirit; images we cannot contain within the bounds of sleep. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Solitude is never where you are; it is always where you are not, and is only possible with a stranger present; whatever the place or whoever the person, it must be one that is wholly ignorant concerning you, and concerning which or whom you are equally ignorant, so that will and sensation remain suspended and confused in an anxious uncertainty, while with the ceasing of all affirmation on your part, your own inner consciousness ceases at the same time. True solitude is to be found in a place that lives a life of its own, but which for you holds no familiar footprint, speaks in no known voice, and where accordingly the stranger is yourself. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Have you ever thought to go away and never come back? Run away and lose your tracks, to go to a place far away and start living again, living a new life, only yours, really live? Did you ever think? ~ Luigi Pirandello

What is the stage? It's a place, baby, you know, where people play at being serious, a place where they act comedies. We've got to act a comedy now, dead serious. ~ Luigi Pirandello

My opinion is a view I hold until ... well, until I find something that changes it. ~ Luigi Pirandello

When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him. ~ Luigi Pirandello

We get paid to hang out in this beautiful court! Four puppets on a string, just like those two up there (pointing to the two hanging puppets), waiting for someone to jerk them into life and make them talk. ~ Luigi Pirandello

That drawer was full of photographs of her. She showed me any number, old and recent.

"All dead," I told her.

She turned her head and glanced at me quickly:

"Dead?"

"Yes, for all they appear to be alive."

"Even this one with the smile?"

"Yes. And this pensive one: and the one with the eyes drooped."

"But how can they be dead, if I here am alive?"

"Ah, you, yes; because you do not see yourself now. But when you are in front of a mirror, the moment you look at yourself again, you are no longer alive."

"And why not?"

"Because, in order to behold yourself, you must for a moment halt life within you. Excuse me, but seeing that you go to the photographer's so often - when the photographer, in front of you with his camera, tells you to be sure not to move, you must have noticed - life is suspended in you - and you feel that such suspension cannot last more than a second - it is like turning into a statue - For life is constant motion, and one can never really see one's self."

"You mean to say that I, while living, have never seen myself?"

"Never; not as I can see you. But I see a likeness of you that is mine and mine alone; it is assuredly not yours. You, while living, have possibly been able to catch no more than a bare glimpse of your own in some snapshot or other that has been made of you; and it has come as an unpleasant surprise; it may even have p ~ Luigi Pirandello

Do you believe you can know yourselves if you don't somehow con- struct yourselves? Or that I can know you if I don't construct you in my way? And can you know me if I don't construct you in my way? We can know only what we succeed in giving form to. ~ Luigi Pirandello

When you say you are in love with humanity, you are well satisfied with yourself. ~ Luigi Pirandello

It is so.When YOU think so ~ Luigi Pirandello

...and here, in this if I always lose myself. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Each of us, face to face with other men, is clothed with some sort of dignity, but we know only too well all the unspeakable things that go on in the heart. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Nowhere! It is merely to show you that one is born to life in many forms, in many shapes, as tree, or as stone, as water, as butterfly, or as woman. So one may also be born a character in a play. ~ Luigi Pirandello

The idea that others saw in me one that was not the I whom I knew, one whom they alone could know, as they looked at me from without, with eyes that were not my own, eyes that conferred upon me an aspect destined to remain always foreign to me, although it was one that was in me, one that was my own to them (a "mine," that is to say, that was not for me!) - a life into which, although it was my own, I had no power to penetrate - this idea gave me no rest. ~ Luigi Pirandello

This is the real drama for me; the belief that we all, you see, think of ourselves as one single person: but it's not true: each of us is several different people, and all these people live inside us. With one person we seem like this and with another we seem very different. But we always have the illusion of being the same person for everybody and of always being the same person in everything we do. But it's not true! It's not true! We find this out for ourselves very clearly when by some terrible chance we're suddenly stopped in the middle of doing something and we're left dangling there, suspended. We realize then, that every part of us was not involved in what we'd been doing and that it would be a dreadful injustice of other people to judge us only by this one action as we dangle there, hanging in chains, fixed for all eternity, as if the whole of one's personality were summed up in that single, interrupted action. ~ Luigi Pirandello

I would love to spend all my time writing to you; I'd love to share with you all that goes through my mind, all that weighs on my heart, all that gives air to my soul; phantoms of art, dreams that would be so beautiful if they could come true. ~ Luigi Pirandello

The capacity for deluding ourselves that today's reality is the only true one, on the one hand, sustains us, but on the other, it plunges us into an endless void, because today's reality is destined to prove delusion for us tomorrow; and life doesn't conclude. It can't conclude. Tomorrow if it concludes, it's finished. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Because evil, my dear child, can be done to anyone and by everyone, but good can only be done to those who need it. ~ Luigi Pirandello

You don't know what it means to live the life that you could have lived, if an event over which you have no control, an unforeseeable circumstance, had not distracted and diverted you, and at times crushed you, as has happened to me. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Man never reasons so much and becomes so introspective as when he suffers; since he is anxious to get at the cause of his sufferings, to learn who has produced them, and whether it is just or unjust that he should have to bear them. ~ Luigi Pirandello

None of us can estimate what we do when we do it from instinct. ~ Luigi Pirandello

We all have a world of things inside ourselves and each one of us has his own private world. How can we understand each other if the words I use have the sense and the value that I expect them to have, but whoever is listening to me inevitably thinks that those same words have a different sense and value, because of the private world he has inside himself, too. ~ Luigi Pirandello

Refusing to have an opinion is a way of having one, isn't it? ~ Luigi Pirandello

Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels. ~ Luigi Pirandello

[Michael Bitbol] asked us to ponder whether the purpose of science is to provide answers about what things are in themselves, or if science is only our most advanced way of developing a pragmatic, conventional knowledge of phenomena sufficient to guide us in our actions. ~ Pier Luigi Luisi

Curiously I was unmoved by my work. Unaffected by the act of murder, I had become entirely numb. I couldn't understand how such detachment was possible-- but I did some digging.

What I discovered would have horrified me... if I was capable of being horrified. My augmentation had included the binding of my DNA to some of history's most notorious assassins.

Are you not getting this? I'll say it in plain English--- I am the perfect killer in every sense of the word--- ---because--- ---I--- ---am--- ---every--- killer.

I'm the act of change possessed in a revolver. I am revolution packed into a suitcase bomb.

I am ever Mark David Chapman and every Charlotte Corday. I am Luigi Lucheni slow-dancing with Balthasar to the tune of semi-automatics, while Gavrilo Princip masturbates in the corner with bath-tub napalm. I am all of them and so much more... because I am going to live forever." Number Five ~ Gerard Way

Xav sprinkled olive oil on his lettuce. 'Lola was very particular that it all had to fit properly.'
'Lola?' squeaked Diamond. I wanted to warn her not to rise to the bait Xav was dangling in front of her but it was too late.
Xav added some Parmesan and pepper. 'Suspicious, Diamond? You should be. This is a bachelor party I'm organizing, not a school outing, and it is going to tick all of Trace's boxes. Lola is either a very efficient water sports instructor or an exotic dancing girl; I'll leave it your imagination.'
I rolled my eyes at Diamond. 'Myabe she's both. I mean the guys will really go for that, I guess. Don't worry,Di, Luigi and his crew will not disappoint us girls.' Luigi was in fact Contessa Nicoletta's little bespectacled chef with whom I had been consulting about the menu for Friday, but the Benedicts weren't to know that. 'He has promised to provide something suitably spicy for our tastes. ~ Joss Stirling

but until then I promise to be the Mario to your Luigi, except I won't hog the spotlight. ~ Adam Silvera

The radiance of which he speaks is the scholastic quidditas, the whatness of a thing. The supreme quality is felt by the artist when the esthetic image is first conceived in his imagination. The mind in that mysterious instant Shelley likened beautifully to a fading coal. The instant wherein that supreme quality of beauty, the clear radiance of the esthetic image, is apprehended luminously by the mind which has been arrested by its wholeness and fascinated by its harmony is the luminous silent stasis of esthetic pleasure, a spiritual state very like to that cardiac condition which the Italian physiologist, Luigi Galvani, using a phrase almost as beautiful as Shelley's, called the enchantment of the heart. ~ James Joyce

It is not among the palm trees that I wish to die, but among the poor who are Jesus Christ. ~ Luigi Orione

Photography is a great adventure in thinking and looking, a wonderful magic toy that miraculously manages to combine our adult awareness with the fairy-tale world of childhood, a never-ending journey through great and small, through variations and the realm of illusions and appearances, a labyrinthine and specular place of multitudes and simulation. ~ Luigi Ghirri

I reiterate that the rigor and credibility brought to the world by Monti's government are for us a point of no return. ~ Pier Luigi Bersani

Mathematics may be the only exception in the sciences that leaves no room for skepicism. But, if mathematical results are exact as no empirical law can ever be, philosophers have discovered that they are not absolutely novel - instead, they are tautological. ~ Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

The next adventure is the government, a government of change. ~ Pier Luigi Bersani

Serve many fruitlessly, If one repay, Th' ingratitude of thousands 'twill outweigh. ~ Luigi Pulci

I read a lot. I listen a lot. I think a lot. But so little remains. The books I read, their plots, their protagonists fade. The university lectures that I had found pretty impressive on first hearing, have faded away. Now I am listening to one on Pirandello. Names of people, books, cities. They are already fading away. Even the titles of films I've seen recently - they have already faded. Authors of thousands of books I've read... All that remains are the colours of their bindings, their covers. I don't remember much about Beauty and the Beast, but I remember clearly, vividly the hear of the day as we were crossing the Rhine bridge, to see the film. Everything that I see, or red, or listen to, connects, translates into moods, bits of surroundings, colors. No, I am not a novelist. No precision of observation, detail. With me, everything is mood, mood, or else - simply nothingness. ~ Jonas Mekas

Always seek input from others to aide you in reaching the best possible decision for your business/start-up. This is due to entrepreneurship mostly being about taking calculated risks, and you will always create better strategies if more facts and information go into the decision-making process. ~ Luigi Wewege

A Mario Brother never says 'can't', Luigi! ~ Mario

When one day Lagrange took out of his pocket a paper which he read at the Académe, and which contained a demonstration of the famous Postulatum of Euclid, relative to the theory of parallels. This demonstration rested on an obvious paralogism, which appeared as such to everybody; and probably Lagrange also recognised it such during his lecture. For, when he had finished, he put the paper back in his pocket, and spoke no more of it. A moment of universal silence followed, and one passed immediately to other concerns. ~ Jean-Baptiste Biot

Fifteen hundred years is ample time in which to lose mutual comprehension. Iceland was colonized by the Norwegians at the end of the ninth century AD. Today's Icelanders, with considerable effort, can understand people from the Scandinavian peninsula, but the Scandinavians hardly understand the Icelanders. A thousand years is the minimum time span for a language to change so much that it becomes incomprehensible. ~ Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

Stopgaps do belong to the internal economy of the form, since the Whole requires them, even if only in a subordinate position ... The stopgap Luigi Paryson's 'zeppa' accepts its own banality, because without the speed that the banal allows up, it would slow up a passage that is crucial for the outcome of the work and its interpretation. ~ Umberto Eco

In my spare time I didn't go out, I sat and read novels I got from the library: Grazia Deledda, Pirandello, Chekhov, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky. ~ Elena Ferrante

Any man who leads the regular and temperate life, not swerving from it in the least degree where his nourishment is concerned, can be but little affected by other disorders or incidental mishaps. Whereas, on the other hand, I truly conclude that disorderly habits of living are those which are fatal. ~ Luigi Cornaro

His bark The daring mariner shall urge far o'er The Western wave, a smooth and level plain, Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel. ~ Luigi Pulci

There's a great freedom of forms and intonations in Luigi Fontanella's poetry. He doesn't take a strong formal stand; his poetry entertains moments of nearly proselike colloquial narrative along with moments of powerful lyrical tension. There is a movement of extremes, from powerful tonality to near atonality, and I like this a great deal; it's a stance that very effectively catches the spirit that makes work in poetry possible nowadays. ~ Giovanni Raboni

A lot of novelists start late - Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But novel-writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can't be taught. This bunkum and stinkum of college creative writing courses! The academics don't know that the only thing you can do for someone who wants to write is to buy him a typewriter. ~ James M. Cain

If there's any interaction between genes and languages, it is often languages that influence genes, since linguistic differences between populations lessen the chance of genetic exchange between them. ~ Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

Trying to attract another underserved audience group - females - brought Super Princess Peach, a game where Peach finally avoids being princess-napped. Bowser kidnaps Mario and Luigi instead, and it's up to her for once to save them. The second-wave feminism lasts as long as it takes Peach to acquire a magical talking parasol. Peach's powers manifest through her emotional states. When she is calm she can heal herself, when she is happy she can fly, when glum she can water plants with her tears, and when angry she literally catches on fire. Using emotions as part of basic game play is a daring concept, and feel free to sub in "insulting" or "outrageous" or "awesome" for "daring." The concept might have been taken more seriously if not for touches like the pink umbrella, and Peach having unlimited lives - core gamers hate being unable to die. ~ Jeff Ryan

I had a teacher, he was 86 years old and his name was Luigi in New York City, and he said, 'Never stop moving. You get to reinvent yourself.' So you have to find ways to reinventing yourself. Especially today, because it's a whole different market - social media is so important. ~ Ben Vereen

We chose to do this work mathematically, which has the advantage of precision but is not always appreciated by readers. It is perhaps for this reason that anthropologists have not shown much interest in these models, unlike economists, for example, for whom the use of mathematics poses no problem. However, one could reach the same conclusions by using just a bit of common sense. ~ Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

The formal artistic gesture is already expressed in the act of taking the photograph. ~ Luigi Ghirri

Everyone will recognize that each sound carries with it a tangle of sensations, already well-known and exhausted, which predispose the listener to boredom, in spite of the efforts of all musical innovators. ~ Luigi Russolo

Remember Luigi, Toaster Toast Toast." - Mario Hotel

"Remember Luigi, Where There Fire, There's Burnt Toast." - Mario Hotel

"Greetings Young Traveller, I See That You Have Wandered Into My Store. Would You Like To Partake In One Of My Goods Or Services, I Sell Clothes, Rope, Bombs, You Want It I Got It, As Long As You Have Enough Rupees. Oh, I See You Don't Have Enough Ruppees, Come Back When You're A Bit, Umm, Riche." - The Legend Of Zelda ~ Nintendo

Well, for over a year now at my desk, a prototype program of Luigi and Mario has been running on my monitor. We've been thinking about the game, and it may be something that could work on a completely new game system. ~ Shigeru Miyamoto

Without Prayer nothing good is done. God's works are done with our hands joined, and on our knees. Even when we run, we must remain spiritually kneeling before Him. ~ Luigi Orione

Here we don't drink coffee, we 'take' it, as a medicine," echoed his business partner, Luigi Solito. "To me, the philosophy of the suspended coffee is that you are happy today, and you give a coffee to the world, as a present. ~ Anonymous

DON Luigi Giussani used to quote this example from Bruce Marshall's novel To Every Man a Penny. The protagonist of the novel, the abbot Father Gaston, needs to hear the confession of a young German soldier whom the French partisans are about to sentence to death. The soldier confesses his love of women and the numerous amorous adventures he has had. The young priest explains that he has to repent to obtain forgiveness and absolution. The soldier answers, "How can I repent? It was something that I enjoyed, and if I had the chance I would do it again, even now. How can I repent?" Father Gaston, who wants to absolve the man who has been marked by destiny and who's about to die, has a stroke of inspiration and asks, "But are you sorry that you are not sorry?" The young man answers impulsively, "Yes, I am sorry that I am not sorry." In other words, he apologizes for not repenting. The door was opened just a crack, allowing absolution to come in ... . ~ Pope Francis

In antiquity there was only silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibility of men. ~ Luigi Russolo

Dear Nintendo, We need a new Mario game, where you rescue the princess in the first ten minutes, and for the rest of the game you try and push down that sick feeling in your stomach that she's 'damaged goods', a concept detailed again and again in the profoundly sex negative instruction booklet, and when Luigi makes a crack about her and Bowser, you break his nose and immediately regret it. When Peach asks you, in the quiet of her mushroom castle bedroom 'do you still love me?' you pretend to be asleep. You press the A button rhythmically, to control your breath, keep it even. ~ Joey Comeau