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Derek Walcott Quotes
Derek Walcott Quotes
Derek Walcott
Poet
Born:
Jan 23
,
1930
Because
Caribbean
Great
People
Think
You
Related authors:
Emily Dickinson
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Khalil Gibran
Maya Angelou
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Robert Frost
Sophocles
Walt Whitman
The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.
Derek Walcott
Property
Language
Imagination
Nobody
Itself
Special
English
English Language
The discontent that lies in the human condition is not satisfied simply by material things.
Derek Walcott
Satisfied
Lies
Simply
Material
Material Things
Discontent
Condition
Human
Human Condition
Things
Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.
Derek Walcott
Love
Stronger
Fragments
Took
Vase
Than
Break
Which
Granted
Whole
Symmetry
Any serious attempt to try to do something worthwhile is ritualistic.
Derek Walcott
Try
Worthwhile
Something
Attempt
Any
Serious
I don't think there is any such thing as a black writer or a white writer. Ultimately, there is someone whom one reads.
Derek Walcott
Black
White
Think
Someone
Writer
Reads
Ultimately
Any
Whom
Thing
I am grateful, you know. I have to be grateful in the sense that I feel that what I have is a gift.
Derek Walcott
You
Grateful
Gift
Be Grateful
Sense
Feel
Know
Am
Poets are always making waves. I mean, you know, in an ideal situation, the ideal republic can't tolerate poets because - it isn't that they mutter and criticize; it is that the poet does not accept the situation called the 'perfect' condition of man - in other words, perfect in the materialistic sense.
Derek Walcott
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
Memory
Mind
Fog
Every
Imagination
Frames
Sunlight
Phrase
Through
Pieces
Island
Bamboo
Effort
Labour
Gods
Racial
Sudden
Rebuilding
Amnesia
Rainbows
Biography
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
The sigh of History rises over ruins, not over landscapes, and in the Antilles there are few ruins to sigh over, apart from the ruins of sugar estates and abandoned forts.
Derek Walcott
History
Few
Sugar
Ruins
Sigh
Abandoned
Rises
Over
Estates
Apart
Landscapes
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
I am not defined as a black writer in the Caribbean, but as soon as I go to America or the U.K., my place becomes black theatre. It's a little ridiculous.
Derek Walcott
Theatre
Black
Caribbean
Defined
Writer
Soon
Becomes
Am
Go
America
Place
Little
Ridiculous
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
Beautiful
Fashion
Me
You
People
Gift
Think
Gave
Say
Out
Poetry
Beautiful People
Come
Another
Because
Around
Am
Sounds
Where
Pompous
Who
Expression
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
Me
Citizen
Before
Pedestrian
Athens
City
Echo
Proportions
Ideal
Became
How
Been
Cultural
Walker
Commercial
May
Human
Where
Spain
Port
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
Life
Grief
Strong
Pride
Mother
Father
My Life
Ninety
All My Life
About
Absence
Talks
Still
Continually
Been
His
Conduct
Who
Now
Aware
Her
Nearly
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