Primo Levi Quotes

... Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria. (There is no greater pain than to remember a happy time when one is in misery.)

Every thought should recall the ruin of a smile.

Sorrow is tranquility remembered in emotion.

No sadness is greater than in misery to rehearse memories of joy.

There is no worse sorrow than remembering happiness in the day of sorrow.

Joy and sorrow are both my perpetual companions, but the joy is called Past and the sorrow Present.

Memory. My poison, my food.

...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.

Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.

Be again, be again. (Pause.) All that old misery. (Pause.) Once wasn't enough for you.

There is pleasure in calm remembrance of a past sorrow.

I couldn’t help but think about school and everything else ending. I liked standing just outside the couches and watching them—it was a kind of sad I didn’t mind, and so I just listened, letting all the happiness and the sadness of this ending swirl around in me, each sharpening the other. For the longest time, it felt kind of like my chest was cracking open, but not precisely in an unpleasant way.

Memories which someday will become all beautiful when the last annoyance that encumbers them shall have faded out of our minds.

To those human beings who are of any concern to me, I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill treatment, indignities, profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, and the wretchedness of the vanquished.

An adventure is never an adventure when it happens. An adventure is simply physical and emotional discomfort recollected in tranquility.

Jennifer had never liked the pain of remembering what had happened, but for Theo it was the pain that kept Laura alive in his memory. He was afraid that if it ever began to heal she would disappear.

They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future.

I stare at the pile of discarded remnants and think of my mother. Did she touch that pillar there? Does her scent still linger in a fragment of glass or a splinter of wood? A terrible emptiness settles into my chest. No matter how much I go about living, there are always small reminders that make the loss fresh again.

I reached up with my finger and traced the scar over my eyebrow, remembering when that was the greatest hurt I'd ever known.

The joy of love is too short, and the sorrow thereof, and what cometh thereof, dureth over long.

Our tears fatten upon our memories of joy.

Melancholy is kind of sweet sometimes, I think. It's not a negative thing. It's not a mean thing. It's just something that happens in life, like autumn.

It is strange how sad it can be - sunlight in the afternoon, don't you think?

It's all still there in heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure-they will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days and years to come.

Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find an edge to cut you.