Quasimodo Quotes

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

I promise I won't do 'things' to you," I told her, giving my inner sexual deviant a chance to speak up. He didn't, and I felt my whole body relax. There were plenty of women in the world. Plenty of them willing to share their body with me for a night. This woman could not be one of them.
"Like you even could do 'things' to me," she huffed, gracing me with a look that led me to believe she thought me quite the Quasimodo.
"Believe me." I waited for her eyes to meet mine again. When they did, the green in them actually looked molten. I didn't blink as I stretched closer. "If I wanted to – if I put my mind to it, my body into action – I could do all kinds of things to you. ~ Nicole Williams

I would think I'd accomplished it all if I could get to play Quasimodo. ~ Elias Koteas

Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

I loved to say quasi. I was saying it now a lot, instead of sort of, or kind of, and it had become a tic. "I am quasi ready to go," I would announce. Or, "I'm feeling a bit quasi today." Murph called me Quasimodo. Or Kami-quasi. Or wild and quasi girl. ~ Lorrie Moore

Thus, the poet's word is beginning to strike forcefully upon the hearts of all men, while absolute men of letters think that they alone live in the real world. ~ 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. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

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. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

I'm nothing but envious that you've been happily married for two years. Try hauling your cookies on a new blind date every Friday, only to have your, already extremely low, expectations dashed as you meet men who look like Quasimodo and have Homer Simpson's IQ. ~ Jane Green

In 1482, Quasimodo was about twenty years of age; Claude Frollo, about thirty-six. One had grown up, the other had grown old. ~ Victor Hugo

An exact poetic duplication of a man is for the poet a negation of the earth, an impossibility of being, even though his greatest desire is to speak to many men, to unite with them by means of harmonious verses about the truths of the mind or of things. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

A minute afterwards he appeared upon the upper platform, still bearing the gipsy [sic] in his arms, still running wildly along, still shouting 'Sanctuary!' and the crowd still applauding. At last he made a third appearance on the summit of the tower of the great bell. From thence he seemed to show exultingly to the whole city the fair creature he had saved; and his thundering voice, that voice which was heard so seldom, and which he never heard at all, thrice repeated with frantic vehemence, even in the very clouds, 'Sactuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary! The Hunchback of Notre Dame ~ Victor Hugo

He therefore turned to mankind only with regret. His cathedral was enough for him. It was peopled with marble figures of kings, saints and bishops who at least did not laugh in his face and looked at him with only tranquillity and benevolence. The other statues, those of monsters and demons, had no hatred for him – he resembled them too closely for that. It was rather the rest of mankind that they jeered at. The saints were his friends and blessed him; the monsters were his friends and kept watch over him. He would sometimes spend whole hours crouched before one of the statues in solitary conversation with it. If anyone came upon him then he would run away like a lover surprised during a serenade. ~ Victor Hugo

The Resistance is a moral certainty, not a poetic one. The true poet never uses words in order to punish someone. His judgment belongs to a creative order; it is not formulated as a prophetic scripture. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

From the night, his solitude, the poet finds day and starts a diary that is lethal to the inert. The dark landscape yields a dialogue. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

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. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

Why was I not made of stone like thee?
Quasimodo[to a gargoyle on the ramparts of Notre Dame as Esmeralda rides off with Gringoire]. ~ Victor Hugo

After the turbulence of death, moral principles and even religious proofs are called into question. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

Quasimodo then lifted his eye to look upon the gypsy girl, whose body, suspended from the gibbet, he beheld quivering afar, under its white robes, in the last struggles of death; then again he dropped it upon the archdeacon, stretched a shapeless mass at the foot of the tower, and he said with a sob that heaved his deep breast to the bottom, 'Oh-all that I've ever loved!' The Hunchback of Notre Dame ~ Victor Hugo

So you're giving up? That's it? Okay, okay. We'll leave you alone, Quasimodo. We just thought, maybe you're made up of something much stronger. ~ Victor Hugo

It's hard to look in charge when you're hunched over like Quasimodo. ~ Rick Riordan

The Sea Still Sounds
(Già da più notti s'ode ancora il mare)
Even more so at night the sea still sounds,
Lightly, up and down, along the smooth sands.
Echo of an enclosed voice in the mind,
that returns in time; and also that
assiduous lament of the gulls; birds
perhaps of the summits that April
drives towards the plain; already
you are near to me in that voice;
and I wish there might yet come to you
from me, an echo of memory,
like this dark murmur of the sea. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

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

The women laughed and wept; the crowd stamped their feet enthusiastically, for at that moment Quasimodo was really beautiful. He was handsome - this orphan, this foundling, this outcast. ~ Victor Hugo

Europeans know the importance of the Resistance; it has been the shining example of the modern conscience. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

People are bound to recognize the name Quasimodo." "Why is that?" "Because he rings a bell. ~ J.A. Konrath

The poet does not fear death, not because he believes in the fantasy of heroes, but because death constantly visits his thoughts and is thus an image of a serene dialogue. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

We wrote verses that condemned us, with no hope of pardon, to the most bitter solitude. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

You asked me why I saved you. You have forgotten a villain who tried to carry you off one night,- a villain to whom the very next day you brought relief upon their infamous pillory. A drop of water and a little pity are more than my whole life can ever repay. You have forgotten that villain; but he remembers."

~Quasimodo to Esmeralda~ ~ Victor Hugo

According to them, the poet is confined to the provinces with his mouth broken on his own syllabic trapeze. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

That's what got her, of course. That everyone thought it so unbelievable that she could possibly attract a man like him. It shouldn't upset her because it was true. She couldn't. Not in this world, in this lifetime. Yet she didn't appreciated everyone else acting as if they were the most improbable twosome since Quasimodo hit on Esmeralda. ~ Jo Leigh

Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed e subito sera
Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world,
pierced by a ray of sunlight,
and suddenly it's evening ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

The poet's spoken discourse often depends on a mystique, on the spiritual freedom that finds itself enslaved on earth. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

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. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

A poet clings to his own tradition and avoids internationalism. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

The poet's other readers are the ancient poets, who look upon the freshly written pages from an incorruptible distance. Their poetic forms are permanent, and it is difficult to create new forms which can approach them. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo