58 Derek Walcott Quotes for You to Enjoy

You Man Words Poet Situation Sense Other Waves Criticize Poets Perfect Ideal Know Accept Because Does Always Making Materialistic Condition In Other Words Republic Mean Tolerate

There is a restless identity in the New World. The New World needs an identity without guilt or blame. Derek Walcott

Needs Blame World Guilt Restless New Identity Without New World

I consider the sound of the sea to be part of my body. Derek Walcott

Consider Part Sound Body Sea

All of the Antilles, every island, is an effort of memory: every mind, every racial biography culminating in amnesia and fog. Pieces of sunlight through the fog and sudden rainbows, arcs-en-ciel. That is the effort, the labour of the Antillean imagination, rebuilding its gods from bamboo frames, phrase by phrase. Derek Walcott

Modesty is not possible in performance in the Caribbean - and that's wonderful. Derek Walcott

Wonderful Caribbean Possible Performance Modesty

Rhyme is an attempt to reassemble and reaffirm the possibility of paradise. There is a wholeness, a serenity, in sounds coupling to form a memory. Derek Walcott

Memory Paradise Possibility Attempt Reaffirm Sounds Form Rhyme Serenity Wholeness

What was moving, I think, was the fact that the statue is a woman and not a heroic, manly figure. So for all her scale and immensity, there's something soft about the Statue of Liberty, something tender about her. Derek Walcott

Woman Liberty Manly Think Heroic Scale Immensity Statue Statue Of Liberty About Something Fact Tender Moving Figure Her Soft

I was writing from a very, very early age. My father used to write. He died early, and my mother was a schoolteacher, so my academic background from childhood is a strong one, a good one. Derek Walcott

Good Age Writing Strong Mother Father Background Write He Academic Schoolteacher Very Very Early Age Died Childhood Used Early Early Age

I'm read in the Caribbean with justice, with fairness. What I expect it to do is to encourage articulacy in the young. Derek Walcott

Justice Young Caribbean Fairness Read Encourage Expect

The greatest writers have been, at heart, parochial, provincial in their rootedness. Derek Walcott

Heart Writers Parochial Greatest Been Provincial Greatest Writers

For so long, the world has viewed West Indian culture as semiliterate and backward, which it is not. In my work, I have tried to give that world an exposure so the world can better understand it. Derek Walcott

Work Culture World Better Long Backward Tried Indian Indian Culture Give Understand West Which Viewed Exposure

My dedication to trying to be a poet started very, very young, and I was very well encouraged by good teachers and by older friends and so on, so I think it is a benediction, and I also think it is a calling, a duty. Derek Walcott

Good Poet Young Duty Dedication Older Think Good Teachers Also Well Calling Encouraged Friends Very Trying Teachers Started

That's another pompous expression that is out of fashion, to say that poetry is a gift. It sounds pompous because you say, 'Who gave you the gift, and what is this gift?' And the gift is where I am; the gift is what I have come out of, the people around me who, I think, are beautiful people. Derek Walcott

If music goes out of language, then you are in bad trouble. Derek Walcott

Music You Language Trouble Out Bad Goes Then

We make too much of that long groan which underlines the past. Derek Walcott

Too Much Long Past Too Make Which Much

This is Port of Spain to me, a city ideal in its commercial and human proportions, where a citizen is a walker and not a pedestrian, and this is how Athens may have been before it became a cultural echo. Derek Walcott

A culture, we all know, is made by its cities. Derek Walcott

Culture Made Cities Know

My mother, who is nearly ninety now, still talks continually about my father. All my life, I've been aware of her grief about his absence and her strong pride in his conduct. Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott Quotes

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