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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.

— Jamaica Kincaid

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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 →

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.