Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllWritingPeopleThinkingIfsWayKnowsWorldBlackPersonsWant

Famous Jamaica Kincaid Quotes

“The resistance to my work, and to my way of writing, has been there from the beginning. The first things I wrote were these short short stories collected in At the Bottom of the River, and at least three of them are one sentence long. They were printed in The New Yorker, over the objections of many of the editors in the fiction department.”

WayWritingFirstsLongHas BeensStoriesThreeFictionRiversBottomSentencesResistanceMy WayDepartmentEditorsShort StoryPrintedNew YorkersObjectionsOne Sentence
Author:Jamaica Kincaid
Create image

“Another thing I like to say to my students is this: "How many Corinthians read Paul's letters?" The answer is none. They couldn't have cared less! There aren't even any Corinthians left, but Paul's letters persist. Paul was not a professional writer. He was called to something, and he sent his letters. That's a good way to look at it. That you might be making something that nobody cares about, but you have to do it. It's not that people should care, but that you should care.”

PeopleWayShouldLooksMightCareLeftAnswersStudentsLettersPersistGood WayNobody CaresCorinthians
Author:Jamaica Kincaid
Create image

“In my writing, I'm often describing a universal situation. A situation in which human beings often choose to violate each other. Sometimes I happen to explore that in terms of the black/white dynamic. Generally, a white person does not like me to say, or does not like to be told, "You know, what you did was incredibly wrong."”

KnowsWritingHumansPersonsDoeSometimesHappensBlackTermHuman BeingsWhiteSituationUniversalLike MeDescribingBlack White
Author:Jamaica Kincaid
Create image

“Had the Holocaust happened in Tahiti or the Congo, as it has; had it happened in South America, as it has; had it happened in the West Indies, as it has - you must remember that within fifty years of Columbus's arrival, only the bones remained of the people called the Arawaks, with one or two of them in Spain as specimens. Had the Holocaust committed under the Nazis happened somewhere else, we wouldn't be talking about it the way we talk about it.”

PeopleWayYearsTwoAmericaRememberTalkingHappenedWestSouthCommittedBonesFiftyHolocaustNaziSpainSomewhere ElseCongoArrivalsColumbusSouth AmericaWest IndiesTahiti
Author:Jamaica Kincaid
Create image