Giorgio Bassani Quotes & Sayings

Things die, too, you know. And so, if they too have to die, well there it is, it is so much better to let them go — Giorgio Bassani

She could sense it very clearly: for me, no less than for her, the past counted far more than the present, remembering something far more than possessing it. Compared to memory, every possession can only ever seem disappointing, banal, inadequate ... She understood me so well! My anxiety that the present 'immediately' turned into the past so that I could love it and dream about it at leisure was just like hers, was identical. It was 'our' vice, this: to go forwards with our heads forever turned back. — Giorgio Bassani

In life, if one wants seriously to understand how the world works, he must die at least once. — Giorgio Bassani

Even in a city as small as Ferrara, you can manage, if you like, to disappear for years and years, one from another, living side by side like the dead — Giorgio Bassani