The truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element. Derek Walcott More Quotes by Derek Walcott More Quotes From Derek Walcott You can't write drunk. Derek Walcott drunk writing We read, we travel, we become. Derek Walcott In Eden who sleeps happiest? The serpent. Derek Walcott eden evil sleep She's a rare vase, out of a cat's reach, on its shelf. Derek Walcott vases shelves cat The classics can console. But not enough. Derek Walcott console enough I too saw the wooden horse blocking the stars. Derek Walcott horse block stars I know when dark-haired evening put on her bright silk at sunset, and, folding the sea sidled under the sheet with her starry laugh, that there'd be no rest, there'd be no forgetting. Is like telling mourners round the graveside about resurrection, they want the dead back. Derek Walcott sunset sea dark Who cares about a kid from the Midwest writing pentameter? It's stupid. Derek Walcott stupid writing kids When poems are no good they don't make any sense. Derek Walcott The first thing we have to do is get rid of the pentameter. To ditch the pentameter. Derek Walcott firsts All of Victorian verse is pentameter. Derek Walcott victorian verses The truth is that the poems are ecstatic. Derek Walcott ecstatic truth-is I consider the sound of the sea to be part of my body. Derek Walcott part body sea sound 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 effort imagination mind 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 good sea morning culture 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 name find you patience Modesty is not possible in performance in the Caribbean - and that's wonderful. Derek Walcott possible performance wonderful 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 rhyme serenity paradise 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 there was my twin brother and my sister. We had two aunts as well, my father's sisters. But the immediate family consisted of my mother, my brother, my sister, and me. Derek Walcott me family mother father 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 think liberty moving
