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 write plays and poetry at the same time, and I'm always refining, but I'm not obsessive about it. It's what I like to do, what I've always wanted to do.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a passionate dedication to writing while maintaining a healthy balance and not becoming overly fixated on perfection.
In this quote, Derek Walcott expresses his love for the process of writing both plays and poetry, emphasizing that he engages in constant refinement of his craft. However, he underscores that he does this without becoming obsessively concerned about achieving perfection, highlighting that the creative process is driven by passion and a lifelong aspiration rather than stress or pressure.
Themes
WritingArtCreativityPassionRefinement
In practice
Example use cases
During a writing workshop, one might quote this to encourage others to enjoy their process.
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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