48 Quotes by Pier Paolo Pasolini

I don't believe we shall ever again have any form of society in which men will be free. One should not hope for it. One should not hope for anything. Hope is invented by politicians to keep the electorate happy.

If you know that I am an unbeliever, then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief.

La luna era ormai alta alta nel cielo, s'era rimpicciolita e pareva non volesse più aver che fare col mondo, tutta assorta nella contemplazione di quello che ci stava al di là. Al mondo, pareva che ormai mostrasse solo il sedere; e, da quel sederino d'argento, pioveva giù una luce grandiosa, che invadeva tutto.

Every day my anxiety is higher,every day the grief more mortal.Today more than yesterday terror exalts me…

Behold those times re-created bythe brutal power of sunlit images,the light of life’s tragedy.The walls of the trial, the fieldof the firing squad; and the distantghost of Rome’s suburbs in a ring,gleaming white in naked light.Gunshots: our death, our survival.

We survive, in the confusionof a life reborn beyond reason.

First the mania for confession,then the mania for clarity,issued from you, dark, hypocriticalsentiment! Let them nowcondemn my every passion, let themdrag me through the mud, call me twisted,foul pervert, dilettante, perjurer;you keep me apart, give me life’s assurance:I burn at the stake, play the card of fireand win: I win this small,vast possession, my infinite,miserable pitywhich makes even righteous anger my friend.And I can do this because I’ve endured you too long!

The birds sang in the dustin an elaborate weave, ambiguous,deafening, prey to existencepoor passions lost between the modestsummits of groves of mulberry and elder;and I, like them, in secluded placesreserved for the lost and pure,would wait for evening to fall,for the silent smells of fireand joyous misery to fill the air,for the Angelus bell to toll, veiledin the new peasant mysteryfulfilled in the ancient mystery.

Sopra i tetti delle case si vedevano striscioni di nubi, sfregati e pestati dal vento, che, lassù, doveva soffiare libero come aveva soffiato al principio del mondo.