List of Jamaica Kincaid Quotes

The Strange Thing About My Life Is That I Came To America At About The Time When Racial Attitudes Were Changing. This Was A Big Help To Me. Also, The People Who Were Most Cruel To Me When I First Came To America Were Black Americans. They Made Absolute Fun Of The Way I Talked, The Way I Dressed. I Couldn't Dance. The People Who Were Most Kind And Loving To Me Were White People. So What Can One Make Of That? Perhaps It Was A Coincidence That All The People Who Found Me Strange Were Black And All The People Who Didn't Were White.

He Must Have Smiled At Me, Though I Don't Really Know, But I Don't Like To Think That I Would Love Someone Who Hadn't First Smiled At Me.

All Of These Declarations Of What Writing Ought To Be, Which I Had Myself-though, Thank God I Had Never Committed Them To Paper-i Think Are Nonsense. You Write What You Write, And Then Either It Holds Up Or It Doesn't Hold Up. There Are No Rules Or Particular Sensibilities. I Don't Believe In That At All Anymore.

Why Is A Picture Of Something Real Eventually More Exciting Than The Thing Itself?

I Didn't Know It Was Possible To Be Successful As A Writer, So I Wasn't Afraid To Fail.

There Are Things That Make Us Choose, On Certain Days, On Certain Nights, The Opposite Of Love, In All Its Variations. But I Want To Acknowledge That With Love And Hate It's Not Simply One Or The Other. It's At Least Two, Three, Four, Five Different Emotions Existing At Once, Side By Side, A Broad Spectrum Of Things Alive.

A Psychiatrist Once Asked Me To Draw A Picture Of My Family. This Is When I Was A Member Of A Family Of Four. I Drew The Three Other People In The Family First, Bodies And Heads. And Then, Last, I Began To Draw Myself - But Gave Up.

Gardeners (or Just Plain Simple Writers Who Write About The Garden) Always Have Something They Like Intensely And In Particular, Right At The Moment You Engage Them In The Reality Of The Borders They Cultivate, The Space In The Garden They Occupy At Any Moment, They Like In Particular This, Or They Like In Particular That.

Habit Gives Endurance, And Fatigue Is The Best Night Cap.

It Is True That Our Skin Is Sort Of More Or Less The Same Shade. But Is It True That Our Skin Color Makes Us A Distinctive Race? No.

There's A Difference Between Bravery And Rash Stupidity.

The Sound Of Words In A Novel Is A Pretty Amazing Thing, And I Am Concerned With The Sound Of Every Word I Write.