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16 Motivational Derek Walcott Quotes That You Will Not Mind Stumbling On

Famous As: Saint Lucian Poet, Playwright, and Winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature
Born On: 1930
Died On: 2017
Born In: Castries, Saint Lucia
Died At Age: 87
Sir Derek Alton Walcott was a Saint Lucian playwright, professor and poet. He is regarded as one of the finest literary figures of the Modern era and has been bestowed with some of the biggest literary awards for his excellence. Walcott had been interested in writing poetry from an early age but he was more inclined towards painting and had even trained under Harold Simmons. However, he soon became a keen poet, who idolised Ezra Pound and T. S. Elliot, and by the time he was only 14, his first poem titled ‘Miltonic’ was published. He attended the University College of the West Indies in Jamaica and following his degree, he started working as a teacher and journalist in Trinidad. He rose to prominence with his play ‘Dream on Monkey Mountain’, which was turned into a show on the U.S television in 1970 and he went from strength to strength thereafter. His most famous work is ‘Omeros’, an epic poem published in 1990 that draws heavily from the Iliad and is regarded as his greatest work. He won ‘The Nobel Prize in Literature’ in 1992 and was also awarded the ‘T. S Elliot Prize’, for his work as a literary giant. Here are some of Walcott’s most well-known quotations and thoughts which have been excerpted from the vast sea of his writings and work. Read on the compilation of memorable quotes and thoughts by Derek Walcott.
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Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.

Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.

Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome.

The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome.

Derek Walcott
I read; I travel; I become

I read; I travel; I become

Derek Walcott
The future happens. No matter how much we scream.

The future happens. No matter how much we scream.

Derek Walcott
… the truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element…

… the truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element…

Derek Walcott
What are men? Children who doubt.

What are men? Children who doubt.

Derek Walcott
She's a rare vase, out of a cat's reach, on its shelf.

She's a rare vase, out of a cat's reach, on its shelf.

Derek Walcott
Art is History's nostalgia, it prefers a thatched roof to a concrete factory, and the huge church above a bleached village.

Art is History's nostalgia, it prefers a thatched roof to a concrete factory, and the huge church above a bleached village.

Derek Walcott
Slowly my body grows a single sound, slowly I become a bell, an oval, disembodied vowel, I grow, an owl, an aureole, white fire

poesia

Slowly my body grows a single sound, slowly I become a bell, an oval, disembodied vowel, I grow, an owl, an aureole, white fire poesia "Metamorfosi, I. Luna

Derek Walcott
…and either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation.

…and either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation.

Derek Walcott
I too saw the wooden horse blocking the stars.

I too saw the wooden horse blocking the stars.

Derek Walcott
The classics can console. But not enough.

The classics can console. But not enough.

Derek Walcott
I shall unlearn feeling,
unlearn my gift. That is greater
and harder than what passes there for life.

I shall unlearn feeling, unlearn my gift. That is greater and harder than what passes there for life.

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. 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. Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott
I loved them as poets love the poetry 
that kills them, as drowned sailors the sea.

I loved them as poets love the poetry that kills them, as drowned sailors the sea.

Derek Walcott