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Jamaica Kincaid Quotes

born 1949 United States

Jamaica Kincaid (born May 25, 1949) is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer.

United States
Essayists
Non-fiction authors
Novelists
Short story writers

Random Jamaica Kincaid quote

16 quotes

I've come to think that the traditional way of writing is the artificial way that that's not the way things work at all. It's not the way thinking works.

Interview with NPR (2013)

I now see that good behaviour is the proper posture of the weak, of children.

A Small Place (1988)

Who you are is a mystery no one can answer, not even you.

The Autobiography of My Mother (1996)

It's always amazing to me the people who talk about the superiority of Western civilization—nothing else has done more to destroy the earth!

Interview with Goodreads (2013)

No matter how happy I had been in the past I do not long for it. The present is always the moment for which I love.

The Autobiography of My Mother (1996)

The past is a room full of baggage and rubbish and sometimes things that are of use, but if they are of real use, I have kept them.

The Autobiography of My Mother (1996)

I'm always trying to put my own self into words—who am I?

Interview with Goodreads (2013)

Isn’t that the last straw; for not only did we have to suffer the unspeakableness of slavery, but the satisfaction to be had from “We made you bastards rich” is taken away, too.

A Small Place (1988)

Everything has its opposite, everything holds within it its opposite. That's very hard to accept!

Interview with Goodreads (2013)

Everything I write is autobiographical, but none of it is true in the sense of a court of law—you know, a lie is just a lie. The truth, on the other hand, is complicated.

Interview with Mother Earth (2013)

a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

The Autobiography of My Mother (1996)

His death was imminent and we were all anticipating it, including him, but we never gave any thought to the fact that this was true for all of us, too: our death was imminent, only we were not anticipating it ... yet.”

My Brother (1997)

You can probably tell from my writing that I’m obsessed with notions of justice and injustice—those things that are wrong that can never be made right.

Interview with The Paris Review (2022)

I didn’t really understand racism because I grew up in an all-black society, so I didn’t see how it was possible not to like me!

Interview with Mother Earth (2013)

I suppose that my work is always mourning something, the loss of a paradise—not the thing that comes after you die, but the thing that you had before.

Interview with The Paris Review (2022)

I don’t like to hear people speaking in my work. I like reading it, and I marvel at people who can do it well. And there’s something when you see it done well. It’s just so terrific. But I’m not able to do it.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Jamaica Kincaid (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.