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Derek Walcott Quotes


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Quotes by Derek Walcott

Showing 21-30 of 119 Quotes by 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.

~Derek Walcott

Topics: Bamboo Been Body Centre God Join Like Limb Memory Remembering Severed Thighs Those Which

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The personal vocabulary, the individual melody whose metre is one's biography, joins in that sound, with any luck, and the body moves like a walking, a waking island.

~Derek Walcott

Topics: Any Biography Body Individual Island Like Luck Melody Moves Personal Sound Vocabulary Waking Walking Whose

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The country that I was coming from, the island I was in, hadn't been written about, really. So I thought that I virtually had it all to myself, including the language that was spoken there, which was a French Creole, and a landscape that is not recorded, really, and the people.

~Derek Walcott

Topics: About Been Coming Country French Had Including Island Landscape Language Myself People Really Recorded Spoken Thought Virtually Which Written

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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

Topics: Am Another Around Beautiful Beautiful People Because Come Expression Fashion Gave Gift Me Out People Poetry Pompous Say Sounds Think Where Who You I Think I Am

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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

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

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When I come to England, I don't claim England; I don't own it. I feel a great kinship because of the literature and the landscape. I have great affection for Edward Thomas and Philip Larkin, but there's still this distance: looking on at what I'm admiring, separate from what I am. And that's OK.

~Derek Walcott

Topics: Admiring Affection Am Because Claim Come Distance Edward England Feel Great Kinship Landscape Literature Looking Ok Own Philip Separate Still Thomas I Am I Feel

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I come from a place that likes grandeur; it likes large gestures. It is not inhibited by flourish. It is a rhetorical society. It is a society of physical performance. It is a society of style.

~Derek Walcott

Topics: Come Flourish Gestures Grandeur Large Likes Performance Physical Place Rhetorical Society Style

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What is taught in schools generally in the West Indies is that if something is your thing, it's better than anybody else's because it's yours. It's extremely provincial and also damaging. You prevent people from learning things. The biggest absurdity would be, 'Don't read Shakespeare because he was white.'

~Derek Walcott

Topics: Absurdity Also Anybody Because Better Biggest Damaging Else Extremely Generally He Indies Learning People Prevent Provincial Read Schools Shakespeare Something Taught Than Thing Things West White Would You Your Yours

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I didn't pass the scholarship exam for Oxford because of poor mathematics.

~Derek Walcott

Topics: Because Exam Mathematics Oxford Pass Poor Scholarship

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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

Topics: Caribbean Encourage Expect Fairness Justice Read Young

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Biography

Nationality: Unknown

Type: Poet

Born: January 23rd, 1930

Links

Find Derek Walcott on Amazon

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