- Poet | January 23, 1930 -
I always knew that was what I wanted to do - to write, particularly poetry.
Derek Walcott
PoetryWriteAlwaysKnewWanted
I feel blessed that I was gifted.
BlessedFeelGiftedI Feel
When I went to college - when I read Shakespeare or Dickens or Scott - I just felt that, as a citizen of England, a British citizen, this was as much my heritage as any schoolboy's. That is one of the things the Empire taught, that apart from citizenship, the synonymous inheritance of the citizenship was the literature.
CollegeLiteratureHeritageCitizen
I grew up in a place in which, if you learned poetry, you shouted it out. Boys would scream it out and perform it and do it and flourish it.
PoetryYouPlaceOutFlourishUp
My first book of poems was published privately in 1949. That was my mother. The book was '25 Poems.' It cost 200 dollars.
MotherBookFirstCostPoems
I always have difficulty with the Greek tragic plays. I think the difficulty one has - which is a serious problem - is the question of belief. Do you believe in the myth that the play expresses? Do you believe in it as myth or as reality? With any play, you have to believe in it as reality. You can't act a myth.
BelieveThinkRealityProblemYou
My generation produced some terrific writers from all over, and the great thing about it is that they were all mixed in race.
GreatGenerationRaceOverSome
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.'
LearningPeopleBetterYouWhite
Modesty is not possible in performance in the Caribbean - and that's wonderful.
PerformancePossibleModesty
What I described in 'Another Life' - about being on the hill and feeling the sort of dissolution that happened - is a frequent experience in a younger writer.
LifeExperienceFeelingHillBeing
I have to live, socially, in an almost unfinished society. Among the almost great, among the almost true, among the almost honest. That allows me to describe the anguish.
LiveGreatMeSocietyTrueHonest
I didn't pass the scholarship exam for Oxford because of poor mathematics.
MathematicsScholarshipPoorPass
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Derek Walcott quotes