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Luigi Pirandello Quotes

Luigi Pirandello
  • Mini Bio
  • Name: Luigi Pirandello
  • Born: 28th June 1867, Girgenti, Sicily, Italy
  • Died: 10th December 1936, Rome, Italy
  • Resting place: Museo Luigi Pirandello, Contrada Caos Villaseta, Agrigento, Sicilia, Italy
  • Alma mater: University of Bonn
  • Occupation: Playwright, novelist and poet
  • Awards: He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1934 for his lifetimes contribution to literature rather than mentioning any particular works that he penned
  • Trivia: In 1924 he joined the Italian National Fascist Party (PNF) and Mussolini actively supported his work

"None of us can estimate what we do when we do it from instinct"

Luigi Pirandello

"I think, that life is a sad piece of buffoonery; because we have in ourselves, without being able to know why... the need to deceive ourselves constantly by creating a reality which, from time to time, is discovered to be vain and illusory"

Luigi Pirandello

"They have written that I was a precursor of Fascism. As much as Fascism has been the rejection of so much preconceived doctrine.... I can say I was a precursor.... There must; be Caesars and Octaviani for Vergils to flourish"

Luigi Pirandello

"Oh the dramatic theatre! I will conquer it. I cannot enter into one without experiencing a strange sensation, an excitement of the blood through all my veins"

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

"Anyone can be heroic from time to time, but a gentleman is something which you have to be all the time. Which isn't easy"

Luigi Pirandello

"Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope"

Luigi Pirandello

"Refusing to have an opinion is a way of having one"

Luigi Pirandello

"I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you"

Luigi Pirandello

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

Luigi Pirandello

"It is so, when you think so"

Luigi Pirandello

"My opinion is a view I hold until I find something that changes it"

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

"Pretending is a virtue. If you cant pretend, you can't be king"

Luigi Pirandello

"Women are like dreams, they are never the way you would like to have them"

Luigi Pirandello

"Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die"

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

"I'm apolitical, I'm only a man in the world"

Luigi Pirandello
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Luigi Pirandello Biography

Luigi Pirandello was born into a wealthy Sicillian family who owned and operated sulphur mines. Although encouraged to join the family business he declined so he could further his studies at the University of Bonn and it was his time in Germany that had a major influence on his thinking which translated into the literature he was to write.

He duly received his doctorate in philosophy but it was an education that provided more questions than answers as he immersed himself in the concepts of reality and illusion. The dramatist in Luigi Pirandello would explore realism in his plays that were at first misunderstood and later recognised as masterpieces of modern drama.

His characters were marvellously witty with lines that provoked thought but delivered laughter. Pirandello wrote his first novel L'Esclusa (The Outcast) in 1894 and in 1904 he published what was to become his most successful novel Il Fu Mattia Pascal (The Late Mattia Pascal).

Remarkably he never penned a play until he was 45 years of age but the 1920's proved to be a prolific time with the bulk of his plays flowing from the pen of his imagination during this decade.

Pirandello described himself as apolitical but he relished his relationship with the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini who by the very association helped to promote his work to a worldwide audience. During the 1920's alone his plays were translated into 15 languages such was the appreciation of his body of work.

Philosophers and poets give meaning to questions and they rarely disappoint when it comes to accumulating their best quotes; So here is my compilation of 18 of the best Luigi Pirandello quotes

Quotes About Luigi Pirandello

The author Colin Wilson concurred with his philosophy: "As Pirandello points out, we take happiness for granted, and only begin to question life when we are unhappy"

The French author Denys Amiel felt the liberties Pirandello brought to the theatre: "He stylised the mystery which roams through life and which gives rise to so many hypotheses... He appealed to the collaboration of the publics intelligence, he took the public for what it is: an advanced being and not a child"


Luigi Pirandello image quote