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She's a rare vase, out of a cat's reach, on its shelf.
Derek Walcott
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote compares a woman to a unique and valuable vase, suggesting her rarity and the care needed to appreciate her beauty.

Derek Walcott's quote emphasizes the uniqueness and value of the woman being described, likening her to a rare vase that is not easily accessible, similar to how rare treasures are kept safe from harm. The metaphor suggests that like a fine vase, she deserves admiration and protection, and that her beauty and worth are acknowledged from a distance to ensure her preservation.

Themes

RareVaseBeautyValueProtection

In practice

Example use cases

During a toast at a wedding, you might say, 'Like a rare vase on a shelf, may her beauty always be cherished.'

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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.
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Creating a poem is a continual process of re-creating your ignorance, in the sense of not knowing what's coming next.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element.
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