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 way of behaving, this way of feeling, so hysterical, so sad, when someone has died, I don't like at all and would like to avoid. It's not as if the whole thing has not happened before, it's not as if people have not been dying all along and each...

Jamaica Kincaid

Do you know why people like me are shy about being capitalists? Well, its because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital, like bales of cotton and sacks of sugar, and you were commanding, cruel capitalists, and the memory of this so stron...

Jamaica Kincaid

I think life is difficult and that's that. I am not at all - absolutely not at all - interested in the pursuit of happiness. I am not interested in the pursuit of positivity. I am interested in pursuing a truth, and the truth often seems to be not ha...

Jamaica Kincaid

I'll read anything. In fact, I'll read while I'm doing other things, which is not a good idea.

Jamaica Kincaid

I love planting. I love digging holes, putting plants in, tapping them in. And I love weeding, but I don't like tidying up the garden afterwards.

Jamaica Kincaid

I have a sense of destiny because of my mother, who was an extraordinary person but a terrible candidate for mother. She was like the god Cronus, who gave birth to his children in the morning and then ate them at night.

Jamaica Kincaid

What distinguished my life from my brother's is that my mother didn't like me. When I became a woman, I seemed to repel her.

Jamaica Kincaid

The English language started out as a distortion in my life, but nothing remains the same, and so the distortion is now just normal. That is one of the things that will happen to all distortions: They become normal and turn into something else.

Jamaica Kincaid

At the time I was taught to read, it was an Eden-like time of my life. My mother adored me. Everyone adored me. So I associate reading with enormous pleasure.

Jamaica Kincaid

I have no credentials. I have no money. I literally come from a poor place. I was a servant. I dropped out of college. The next thing you know I'm writing for the 'New Yorker,' I have this sort of life, and it must seem annoying to people.

Jamaica Kincaid

When once I got to America I fell in love with hippie culture, and I've always wanted to live in the country and grow organic vegetables.

Jamaica Kincaid

I suppose you could say I love outlaw American culture.

Jamaica Kincaid

I used to want to be a backup singer. Not a lead singer, because I really can't sing.

Jamaica Kincaid

I think in many ways the problem that my writing would have with an American reviewer is that Americans find difficulty very hard to take. They are inevitably looking for a happy ending.

Jamaica Kincaid

When I'm writing, I think about the garden, and when I'm in the garden I think about writing. I do a lot of writing by putting something in the ground.

Jamaica Kincaid

I didn't know it was possible to be successful as a writer, so I wasn't afraid to fail.

Jamaica Kincaid

People don't make changes because things are wonderful.

Jamaica Kincaid

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

Jamaica Kincaid

I've never gotten used to winter and never will.

Jamaica Kincaid

I like cooking, but I think someone else ought to do the dishes.

Jamaica Kincaid

The garden has taught me to live, to appreciate the times when things are fallow and when they're not.

Jamaica Kincaid

Author Bio

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