Quotes by Derek Walcott

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I don't want to write poems about the royal wedding. I would have to be moved by the event."

"Ted Hughes is dead. That's a fact, OK. Then there's something called the poetry of Ted Hughes. The poetry of Ted Hughes is more real, very soon, than the myth that Ted Hughes existed - because that can't be proven."

"I have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer. I have grown up believing it is a vocation, a religious vocation."

"I can be upset by malice. Most critics are very poor poets. Poetry is a craft that takes a lot to appreciate, and there are some critics who have no ear for it. An irresponsible critic can do a lot of psychic damage, but eventually, they don't affect your work."