Quotes by Jamaica Kincaid

About Jamaica Kincaid:

Jamaica Kincaid is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. She was born in St. John's, Antigua, which is part of the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda. She lives in North Bennington, Vermont, during the summers and teaches at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, during the academic year. Kincaid is an award-winning writer whose work has been both commended and criticized for its subject matter and tone because her writing draws upon her life and is perceived as angry. In response, Kincaid counters that writers draw upon their lives all the time and that to describe her writing as autobiographical and angry is not a valid criticism.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

This is how you bully a man; this is how an man bullies you.

Jamaica Kincaid

But I think Cybil was my biggest fan. She cut out my articles and hung them in her locker and we were always cracking up how if you wrote the simplest, most obvious thing in the world people thought you were a genius.

Jamaica Kincaid

What I don't write is as important as what I write.

Jamaica Kincaid

The space between the idea of something and its reality is always wide and deep and dark. The longer they are kept apart—idea of thing, reality of thing—the wider the width, the deeper the depth, the thicker and darker the darkness.

Jamaica Kincaid

this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this ...

Jamaica Kincaid

I grew up in this poor place, with very limited circumstances, at about 16 years of age was sent by my family to work, and instead of remaining in the position into which I was sent, I somehow worked my way out of it without any help from anyone, jus...

Jamaica Kincaid

I have a photograph of myself when I was 2 years of age, and I don't recognize the person in the photograph. She doesn't look anything like me, and I can't find any trace of her in me physically. And yet I remember her very, very well - even her anxi...

Jamaica Kincaid

I like melancholy. I like to pretend that I'm alone in the world and I'm just sort of abandoned.

Jamaica Kincaid

I went back to my cabin and lay down on my berth. Everything trembled as if it had a spring at its very center. I could hear the small waves lap-lapping around the ship. They made an unexpected sound, as if a vessel filled with liquid had been placed...

Jamaica Kincaid

Out of the corner of one eye, I could see my mother. Out of the corner of the other eye, I could see her shadow on the wall, cast there by the lamplight. It was a big and solid shadow, and it looked so much like my mother that I became frightened. Fo...

Jamaica Kincaid

The inevitable is no less a shock just because it is inevitable.

Jamaica Kincaid

It is sad that unless you are born a god, your life,from its very beginning, is a mystery to you.

Jamaica Kincaid

I was a new person then, I knew things I had not known before, I knew things that you can know only if you have been through what I had just been through.

Jamaica Kincaid

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

Jamaica Kincaid

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.

Jamaica Kincaid

Among the beliefs I held about the world was that being beautiful should not matter to a woman, because it was one of those things that would go away--your beauty would go away, and there wouldn't be anything you could do to bring it back.

Jamaica Kincaid

In a daydream I used to have, all these places were points of happiness to me; all these places were lifeboats to my small drowning soul, for I would imagine myself entering and leaving them, and just that - entering and leaving over and over again -...

Jamaica Kincaid

I never wanted to live in that place again, but if for some reason I was forced to live there again, I would never accept the harsh judgments made against me by people whose only power to do so was that they had known me from the moment I was born.

Jamaica Kincaid

That the world I was in could be soft, lovely, and nourishing was more than I could bear, and so I stood there and wept, for I didn't want to love one more thing that could make my heart break into a million little pieces at my feet.

Jamaica Kincaid

I wrote home to say how lovely everything was, and I used flourishing words and phrases, as if I were living life in a greeting card - the kind that has a satin ribbon on it, and quilted hearts and roses, and is expected to be so precious to the pers...

Jamaica Kincaid

Author Bio

  • NameJamaica Kincaid
  • Descriptionnovelist, gardening writer, gardener
  • BornMay 25, 1949
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist; Playwright
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship