Quotes by Derek Walcott

“As human beings weve certainly suffered the loss of awe, the loss of sacredness, and the loss of the fact that were not here were not put on earth to shape it anyway we want... You want something t...”

“Who is the man who can speak to the strong?Where is the fool who can talk to the wise?Men who are dead now have learnt this long,Bitter is wisdom that fails when it tries.”

“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.”

“But drunkenly, or secretly, we swore,Disciples of that astigmatic saint,That we would never leave the islandUntil we had put down, in paint, in words,As palmists learn the network of a hand,All of ...”

“The future happens. No matter how much we scream.”

“I too saw the wooden horse blocking the stars.”

“Let them run ahead. Then Ill have good reason for shooting them down. Sharpeville? Attempting to escape. Attempting to escape from the prison of their lives. Thats the most dangerous crime. It brin...”

“What are men? Children who doubt.”

“Who with the Devil tries to play fair,weaves the net of his own despair.Oh, smile; whats a house between drunkards?”

“In the Village IIIWho has removed the typewriter from my desk,so that I am a musician without his pianowith emptiness ahead as clear and grotesqueas another spring? My veins bud, and I am sofull of...”

“Visual surprise is natural in the Caribbean; it comes with the landscape, and faced with its beauty, the sigh of History dissolves.”

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

“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— we’re not put on earth— to shape it anyway we want... You want someth...”

“The future happens. No matter how much we scream.”

“I too saw the wooden horse blocking the stars.”

“Let them run ahead. Then I’ll have good reason for shooting them down. Sharpeville? Attempting to escape. Attempting to escape from the prison of their lives. That’s the most dangerous crime. It br...”

“What are men? Children who doubt.”