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Derek Walcott Quotes


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Quotes by Derek Walcott

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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

Topics: English English Language Imagination Itself Language Nobody Property Special

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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

Topics: Awe Caribbean Few Happens Immense Islands Just Ocean People Respect

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There is a force of exultation, a celebration of luck, when a writer finds himself a witness to the early morning of a culture that is defining itself, branch by branch, leaf by leaf, in that self-defining dawn, which is why, especially at the edge of the sea, it is good to make a ritual of the sunrise.

~Derek Walcott

Topics: Branch Celebration Culture Dawn Defining Early Early Morning Edge Finds Force Good Himself Itself Leaf Luck Make Morning Ritual Sea Sunrise Which Why Witness Writer

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The discontent that lies in the human condition is not satisfied simply by material things.

~Derek Walcott

Topics: Condition Discontent Human Human Condition Lies Material Material Things Satisfied Simply Things

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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

Topics: Attempt Form Memory Paradise Possibility Reaffirm Rhyme Serenity Sounds Wholeness

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The number of people who read a poem is not as important as how the poem affects those who read it.

~Derek Walcott

Topics: Affects How Important Number People Poem Read Those Who

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Musical composition, about which I know little, is a complicated art, and some contemporary music may be the equivalent of a complex abstract painting.

~Derek Walcott

Topics: About Abstract Art Complex Complicated Composition Contemporary Equivalent Know Little May Music Musical Painting Some Which

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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

Topics: Amnesia Bamboo Biography Effort Every Fog Frames Gods Imagination Island Labour Memory Mind Phrase Pieces Racial Rainbows Rebuilding Sudden Sunlight Through

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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

Topics: Caribbean Draw Heights Laurel Like Natives Organically Sea Spice Strength Trees Working

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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

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

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Biography

Nationality: Unknown

Type: Poet

Born: January 23rd, 1930

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