35 Quotes by Salvatore Quasimodo

He passes from lyric to epic poetry in order to speak about the world and the torment in the world through man, rationally and emotionally. The poet then becomes a danger.

In opposition to this detachment, he finds an image of man which contains within itself man's dreams, man's illness, man's redemption from the misery of poverty - poverty which can no longer be for him a sign of the acceptance of life.

A poet clings to his own tradition and avoids internationalism.

Religious power, which, as I have already said, frequently identifies itself with political power, has always been a protagonist of this bitter struggle, even when it seemingly was neutral.

The antagonism between the poet and the politician has generally been evident in all cultures.

Even a polemic has some justification if one considers that my own first poetic experiments began during a dictatorship and mark the origin of the Hermetic movement.

Poetry is also the physical self of the poet, and it is impossible to separate the poet from his poetry.

The writer of stories or of novels settles on men and imitates them; he exhausts the possibilities of his characters.

As the poet has expected, the alarms now are sounded, for - and it must be said again - the birth of a poet is always a threat to the existing cultural order, because he attempts to break through the circle of literary castes to reach the center.