A Quote by Derek Walcott

I am only one-eighth the writer I might have been had I contained all the fragmented languages of Trinidad.

Derek Walcott

Quote Topics

Am Been Contained Eighth Fragmented Had Languages Might Might Have Been Only Trinidad Writer

Quote Author

Derek Walcott
Poet
January 23, 1930 - March 17, 2017

There's this great fashion among writers, especially those who follow the transnational conservatives like V.S. Naipaul, to disavow one's place in the world as a sort of box that has sprung you but is only worthy of your scorn, because it once contained you. And I've been tempted to say foolish things, like "I am an American writer" or "I belong nowhere," but the truth is I'm perfectly proud of identifying as an Indian writer, even if that might hurt my bottom line.

Karan Mahajan

If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.

Ernest Hemingway

I am not possessive at all. In every relationship I have had, the girl has left me. And the fundamental complaint has been that I am self-contained. I am just comfortable with myself and am always on an adventure.

Shekhar Kapur

I don't think I would have been a writer if I hadn't been a mother. I wanted to construct something that contained some of these feelings that I had, some of these discoveries or revelations.

Carol Shields

What was happening was only the working-out of a process that had started years ago. The first step had been a secret, involuntary thought, the second had been the opening of the diary. He had moved from thoughts to words, and now from words to actions. The last step was something that would happen in the Ministry of Love. He had accepted it. The end was contained in the beginning.

George Orwell

While I am most at home in London, I cannot really label myself as either British or Trinidadian. I write in the English language and live in the U.K. I find it hard to say that I am an entirely British writer, especially when I supported Trinidad in the 2006 World Cup and also support the West Indies cricket team.

Monique Roffey

I am a stupendously fast reader and always have been. I can read in at least three languages fluently and two languages with a little bit more difficulty.

Michael Korda

The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place.

Michael Chabon

I think if I had been writing fiction, where the work is entirely dependent on the writer's creativity and the potential directions the narrative might take are infinite, I might have frozen

Laura Hillenbrand

I think if I had been writing fiction, where the work is entirely dependent on the writer's creativity and the potential directions the narrative might take are infinite, I might have frozen.

Laura Hillenbrand

I am not very good with languages. So, in spite of working in films in 17 different languages, I only follow my passion to act without getting worked up about the language.

Ashish Vidyarthi

Plurality of languages: [...] It is crucial 1. that there are many languages and that they differ not only in vocabulary, but also in grammar, and so in mode of thought and 2. that all languages are learnable.

Hannah Arendt

Sometimes it's better to come through from, say, last to eighth than staying eighth, and you've qualified eighth!

Max Verstappen

The most compelling insight of that day was that this awesome recall had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid. Everything I had recognized came from the depths of my memory and my psyche. I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability.

Alexander Shulgin

In Jamaica we had the English way of schooling from the age of four, so when I got to America I was already a few years advanced because I started school at the age of three-and-a-half rather than six and my grades moved up accordingly. In America, they start you at school at six because the grades are different. I had to take a test and they didn't know what to do with me. It wasn't that I was any smarter; I had just started younger. All of a sudden I was jumped from eighth to tenth grade. They said I was very smart, but I was only smart in languages, really.