I hate all that nonsense about not touching the colonialists' language. All that about it being corrupting and belonging to the master… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
There are certain functions that a writer has to do. In a time of crisis, it is great to have heroic poems,… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
When I come to England, I don't claim England; I don't own it. I feel a great kinship because of the literature… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
Anybody great, we're all interested in the relics. If you found an unfinished Gauguin, you'd still want to see it. — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
I have to live, socially, in an almost unfinished society. Among the almost great, among the almost true, among the almost honest.… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
A long time ago, I thought, as a writer in the Caribbean, 'I don't ever want to have to write 'It was… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
You can't read to yourself. It's your inner ear that hears a poem. If you hear a poet read his own work,… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
My generation produced some terrific writers from all over, and the great thing about it is that they were all mixed in… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
Memory that yearns to join the centre, a limb remembering the body from which it has been severed, like those bamboo thighs of the… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
I don't feel I've arrived home until I get on the beach. All my life, the theater of the sea has been a very… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
“As human beings we’ve certainly suffered the loss of awe, the loss of sacredness, and the loss of the fact that we’re not here—… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
“I shall unlearn feeling, unlearn my gift. That is greater and harder than what passes there for life.” — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
The greatest writers have been, at heart, parochial, provincial in their rootedness. — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
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… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
My family background really only consists of my mother. She was a widow. My father died quite young; he must have been thirty-one. Then… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
Like any art, what is the most imprisoning thing is also the most delivering thing. If an actor knows he only has 12 syllables… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
