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

— Jamaica Kincaid The Autobiography of My Mother (1996)

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Memory

More quotes by Jamaica Kincaid

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)

All Jamaica Kincaid quotes →

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Women and elephants never forget an injury.

Saki Reginald (1904)

Man should possess an infinite appetite for life. It should be self-evident to him, all the time, that life is superb, glorious, endlessly rich, infinitely desirable.

Colin Wilson The Philosopher's Stone (1969)

To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.

Thomas Campbell

In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important a function as recollecting.

William James The Principles of Psychology (1890)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jamaica Kincaid (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.