Luigi Pirandello

Who was Luigi Pirandello?

Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet and short story writer. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage".

Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written in Sicilian. Pirandello's tragic farces are often seen as forerunners of the Theatre of the Absurd.

Famous Quotes:

• A fact is like a sack -- it won't stand up if it's empty. To make it stand up, first you have to put in it all the reasons and feelings that caused it in the first place.
• Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels.
• Woman -- for example, look at her case! She turns tantalizing inviting glances on you. You seize her. No sooner does she feel herself in your grasp than she closes her eyes. It is a sign of her mission, the sign by which she says to man: Blind yourself, for I am blind.
• 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.
• Anyone can be heroic from time to time, but a gentleman is something you have to be all the time.
• I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you.
• You too must not count too much on your reality as you feel it today, since like yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow.
• 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.
• In bed my real love has always been the sleep that rescued me by allowing me to dream.
• It is misery, you know, unspeakable misery for the man who lives alone and who detests sordid, casual affairs; not old enough to do without women, but not young enough to be able to go and look for one without shame!