173 Quotes by Derek Walcott

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.

The classics can console. But not enough.

Good science and good art are always about a condition of awe . . . I don’t think there is any other function for the poet or the scientist in the human tribe but the astonishment of the soul.

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 brings about revolution. So, off we go, lads!

The fist clenched round my heartloosens a little, and I gaspbrightness; but it tightensagain. When have I ever not lovedthe pain of love? But this has movedpast love to mania. This has the strong clench of the madman, this is gripping the ledge of unreason, before plunging howling into the abyss.Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.

History was fact,History was a cannon, not a lizard; De Grasseleaving Martinique, and Rodney crouching to actin the right wind. Iounalo, my royal arse!Hewanorra, my hole! Was the greatest battlein naval history, which put the French to rout,fought for a creature with a disposable tailand elbows like a goalie?

I read; I travel; I become

what I preferredwas not statues but the bird in the statue's hair.

I too saw the wooden horse blocking the stars.