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 (Italian: [salvaˈtoːre kwaˈziːmodo]; August 20 1901 – June 14 1968) was an Italian author and poet. Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale he is one of the foremost Italian poets of the 20th century. In 1959 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his lyrical poetry which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times".