The sigh of History rises over ruins, not over landscapes, and in the Antilles there are few ruins to sigh over, apart from the ruins of sugar estates and abandoned forts.

Quote by Derek Walcott

Topics: Derek Walcott Quotes

The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it...

The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it...

If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's...

If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's...

A culture, we all know, is made by its cities.

A culture, we all know, is made by its cities.

Because that is what such a city is, in the New World, a writer's heaven.

Because that is what such a city is, in the New World, a writer's heaven.

Any serious attempt to try to do something worthwhile is ritualistic.

Any serious attempt to try to do something worthwhile is ritualistic.

This is Port of Spain to me, a city ideal in its commercial and human...

This is Port of Spain to me, a city ideal in its commercial and human...

Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love...

Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love...

We make too much of that long groan which underlines the past.

We make too much of that long groan which underlines the past.

The personal vocabulary, the individual melody whose metre is one's biography, joins in that sound,...

The personal vocabulary, the individual melody whose metre is one's biography, joins in that sound,...

Visual surprise is natural in the Caribbean; it comes with the landscape, and faced with...

Visual surprise is natural in the Caribbean; it comes with the landscape, and faced with...

Memory that yearns to join the centre, a limb remembering the body from which it...

Memory that yearns to join the centre, a limb remembering the body from which it...

If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's...

If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's...

The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible.

The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible.

The wastebasket is a writer's best friend.

The wastebasket is a writer's best friend.

In the middle of the silence in a writer's house lies an invalid: the book...

In the middle of the silence in a writer's house lies an invalid: the book...

Write injuries in sand, kindnesses in marble

Write injuries in sand, kindnesses in marble

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to...

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to...

The pen is a formidable weapon, but a man can kill himself with it a...

The pen is a formidable weapon, but a man can kill himself with it a...

Writing is a sweet, wonderful reward

Writing is a sweet, wonderful reward

The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes...

The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes...