I don't feel I've arrived home until I get on the beach. All my life, the theater of the sea has been a very strong thing.
Derek WalcottRead
I am not in England; I live in the Caribbean. So I am not hungover by prizes and awards because it does not happen very often.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The speaker values living in the present and does not seek validation through external accolades.
In this quote, Derek Walcott expresses a sense of contentment and detachment from the conventional markers of success, such as prizes and awards. He emphasizes his life in the Caribbean as a place where he is free from the pressures of seeking validation from others, suggesting that true fulfillment comes from one's surroundings and personal experiences rather than societal recognition.
Themes
HappinessSuccessContentmentValidationLife
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about finding joy in everyday life.
More from Derek Walcott
All quotes →Creating a poem is a continual process of re-creating your ignorance, in the sense of not knowing what's coming next.
Derek WalcottRead
A long time ago, I thought, as a writer in the Caribbean, 'I don't ever want to have to write 'It was great in Paris.'' Because I don't think, proportionately speaking, that one's experience in a city as opposed to, say, a village in St. Lucia, is superior to the other.
Derek WalcottRead
My mother was a schoolteacher and very, very encouraging. She understood what it meant when I said I wanted to be a writer; both me and my brother wrote.
Derek WalcottRead
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.
Derek WalcottRead
The truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element.
Derek WalcottRead
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