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
Memory that yearns to join the centre, a limb remembering the body from which it has been severed, like those bamboo thighs of the god.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on memory as a longing for connection and wholeness.
Derek Walcott's quote illustrates the profound sense of yearning that comes from memories, comparing them to a severed limb that has a deep desire to reconnect with its body. It suggests that memory is not just a collection of past experiences, but an emotional journey that reflects our desire for unity and belonging, emphasizing the deep ties we have to our origins and the wholeness that is often lost over time.
Themes
MemoryYearningConnectionWholenessBelonging
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of heritage, one might use this quote to highlight how our past shapes our identity.
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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