27 Quotes & Sayings By Luigi Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello was born in 1906 in what is now San Remo, Italy. He was one of the most important playwrights and dramatists of the twentieth century. His work is known for its unique mixture of realism and unreality, sight gags, rapid pace, absurdist elements, and disturbing undercurrents. His plays are often described as absurdist because of their satirical view of human psychology Read more

Pirandello also wrote realistic novels, short stories, essays, libretti, stage directions, film scripts, and several volumes of autobiography. Born into an aristocratic family with literary aspirations, Pirandello worked hard to overcome his family's expectations for him to become a doctor or lawyer. To his father he wrote letters asking for advice about how to write a play.

To his mother he wrote letters asking her what he should do next.

1
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
2
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
3
...and here, in this if I always lose myself. Luigi Pirandello
4
Whatever is a reality today, whatever you touch and believe in and that seems real for you today, is going to be, like the reality of yesterday, an illusion tomorrow. Luigi Pirandello
5
Why are you so anxious to destroy in the name of a vulgar, commonplace sense of truth, this reality which comes to birth attracted and formed by the magic of the stage itself, which has indeed more right to live here than you, since it is much truer than you -- if you don't mind my saying so? Luigi Pirandello
6
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
7
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
8
One gives way to the temptation, only to rise from it again, afterwards, with a great eagerness to reestablish one's dignity, as if it were a tombstone to place on the grave of one's shame, and a monument to hide and sign the memory of our weaknesses. Everybody's in the same case. Some folks haven't the courage to say certain things, that's all! T H E STEP-DAUGHTER: All appear to have the courage to do them though. Luigi Pirandello
9
You don’t appreciate the fact that madmen are very lucky. Luigi Pirandello
10
In his madness he became a terrifying actor! Luigi Pirandello
11
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
12
The secret of living is to find a pivot the pivot of a concept on which you can make your stand. Luigi Pirandello
13
My opinion is a view I hold until... well until I find something that changes it. Luigi Pirandello
14
Every true man sir who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants lives so as to give a meaning and a value to his own life. Luigi Pirandello
15
The secret of living is to find ... the pivot of a concept on which you can make your stand. Luigi Pirandello
16
I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you. Luigi Pirandello
17
None of us can estimate what we do when we do it from instinct. Luigi Pirandello
18
You too must not count overmuch on your reality as you feel it today since like that of yesterday it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow. Luigi Pirandello
19
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
20
Logic is one thing, the human animal another. You can quite easily propose a logical solution to something and at the same time hope in your heart of hearts it won't work out. Luigi Pirandello
21
In bed my real love has always been the sleep that rescued me by allowing me to dream. Luigi Pirandello
22
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
23
Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels. Luigi Pirandello
24
Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die! Luigi Pirandello
25
Anyone can be heroic from time to time, but a gentleman is something you have to be all the time. Luigi Pirandello
26
The history of mankind is the history of ideas. Luigi Pirandello