Author: Derek Walcott

Quotes

The Caribbean is an immense ocean that just happens to have a few islands in it. The people have an immense respect for it, awe of it.

The Caribbean is an immense ocean that just happens to have a few islands in it. The people have an immense respect for it, awe of it.

- Derek Walcott

I have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer. I have grown up believing it is a vocation, a religious vocation.

I have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer. I have grown up believing it is a vocation, a religious vocation.

- Derek Walcott

A noun is not a name you give something. It is something you watch becoming itself, and you have to have the patience to find out what it is.

A noun is not a name you give something. It is something you watch becoming itself, and you have to have the patience to find out what it is.

- Derek Walcott

Memory that yearns to join the centre, a limb remembering the body from which it has been severed, like those bamboo thighs of the god.

Memory that yearns to join the centre, a limb remembering the body from which it has been severed, like those bamboo thighs of the god.

- Derek Walcott

The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.

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

If you talk about language in the Caribbean, you must relate it to history.

If you talk about language in the Caribbean, you must relate it to history.

- Derek Walcott

Visual surprise is natural in the Caribbean; it comes with the landscape, and faced with its beauty, the sigh of History dissolves.

Visual surprise is natural in the Caribbean; it comes with the landscape, and faced with its beauty, the sigh of History dissolves.

- Derek Walcott

The Caribbean is not an idyll, not to its natives. They draw their working strength from it organically, like trees, like the sea almond or the spice laurel of the heights.

The Caribbean is not an idyll, not to its natives. They draw their working strength from it organically, like trees, like the sea almond or the spice laurel of the heights.

- Derek Walcott

The fate of poetry is to fall in love with the world.

The fate of poetry is to fall in love with the world.

- Derek Walcott

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