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Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid Quotes

Novelist

Jamaica Kincaid is a celebrated novelist known for her distinctive style and poignant storytelling. Born on May 25, 1949, she has made significant contributions to the literary world with her works that often explore themes of identity, colonialism, and the complexities of the human experience.

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All Writing People Thinking Ifs Way Knows World Black Persons Want Garden Mother Race Book Angry Ideas Sometimes Fiction Firsts Lines

Famous Jamaica Kincaid Quotes

“If I actually ran the world, I'd do it from the kitchen. It's not anything deliberate or a statement or anything, that's just how I understand things. It's arranged along informal lines.”

Ifs World Lines Statements Ran Kitchen Deliberate

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“in the place I am from ... a grave is topped off with a huge mound of loose earth - carelessly, as if piled up in child's play, not serious at all - because death is just another way of being, and the dead will not stay put, and sometimes the actions of the dead are more significant, more profound, than their actions in life, and no structure of concrete or stone can contain them.”

Ifs Way Children Sometimes Play Action Earth Death Serious Huge Stones Structure Profound Significant Graves Concrete Another Way

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“if I'd thought that nobody would like it as I was writing it, I would have written it even more. But I never think of the audience. I never think of people reading. I never think of people, period.”

People Ifs Thinking Writing Reading Audience Written Periods

Author: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 person receiving it that the manufacturer has placed a leaf of plastic on the front to protect it.”

Ifs Heart Kind Persons Home Used Fronts Protect Rose Expected Lovely Cards Live Life Phrases Receiving Plastic Leafs Flourishing Ribbons Greetings Satin Greeting Card

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“But no longer could I aks God what to do, since the answer, I was sure, would not suit me. I could do what suited me know, as long as I could pay for it. 'As long as I could pay for it.' That phrase soon became the tail that wagged my dog. If I had died then, it should have been my epigraph.”

Ifs Knows Should Long Has Beens Answers Pay Dog Should Have Died Suits Phrases Tails My Dog Should Have Been Epigraphs

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I think a woman is powerless if she cannot freely claim the right to her reproductive capacity. Society can talk about anything it likes, except a woman's reproductive existence.”

Ifs Thinking Existence Capacity Claims Likes Powerless

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“Children like their mothers especially to be standing still and watching them, even if they are sleeping. At least that's how I felt. There's nothing wrong with the self-interest of children; it's just the way they are.”

Ifs Way Children Stills Self Mother Felt Interest Sleep Inspiring Standing Mothers Day Self Interest Standing Still

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“Everything I do is because of writing. If I go for a walk, it's because I'm thinking of writing. I go look at flowers, I go look at the garden, I go look at a museum, but it's all coming back to writing.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Looks Walks Flower Garden Museums Coming Back

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I don't really do anything that isn't about writing, and I don't really know who I am if I'm not thinking about writing.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Writing Who I Am

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“Race as a subject only comes about because of what I look like. If I say something truthfully, people say "Oh, she's so angry." If I write about a married person who lives in Vermont, it becomes "Oh, she's autobiographical."”

People Ifs Writing Looks Persons Race Subjects Married Angry Vermont

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“If I describe a person's physical appearance in my writing, which I often do, especially in fiction, I never say someone is "black" or "white." I may describe the color of their skin - black eyes, beige skin, blue eyes, dark skin, etc. But I'm not talking about race.”

Ifs Writing May Persons Eye Black Dark White Race Fiction Talking Color Skins Blue Appearance Etc Not Talking Blue Eyes Black Or White Black Eyes Physical Appearance Dark Skin

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I'm always telling my students go to law school or become a doctor, do something, and then write. First of all you should have something to write about, and you only have something to write about if you do something.”

Ifs Should Writing Firsts School Law Students Should Have Doctors Law School

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“If you just sit there, and you're a writer, you're bound to write crap. A lot of American writing is crap. And a lot of American writers are professionals.”

Ifs Writing Bounds Crap American Writer

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“So much history, if you or I were to write it, could seem a fiction. These separations, these lines that tell us this is fiction or non-fiction, that this is history or this is a novel, are often useless.”

Ifs Writing Seems Lines Fiction Novel Separation Useless Non Fiction

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I wouldn't mind being labeled as "angry," if it wasn't used once again to denigrate and belittle.”

Ifs Mind Used Angry Belittle

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I don't feel I'm angry. I feel as though I'm describing something true. If I had stabbed my husband, I could understand being called "angry." If I had an affair with my husband's best friend and written about that experience, I could see the anger. But I'm not doing that.”

Ifs Feels Written Husband Angry Affair My Husband Describing

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“People think if you describe someone with glistening brown skin you're writing about race, as if the whole of the African diaspora is in someone's brown skin.”

People Ifs Thinking Writing Whole Race Skins Brown Diaspora Brown Skin

Author: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.”

Ifs Knows Persons Has Beens Known

Book:The Autobiography of My Mother: A Novel

Source: The Autobiography of My Mother: A Novel

“The past is a room full of baggage and rubbish and sometimes things that are of use, but if they are of real use, I have kept them.”

Ifs Real Sometimes Use Past Rooms Rubbish Baggage

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“One of the things reading does, it makes your loneliness manageable if you are an essentially lonely person.”

Ifs Persons Doe Reading Loneliness Lonely Manageable Lonely Person

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

About the Author

Born: May 25, 1949
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 182

Related Topics

Writing People Thinking Ifs Way Knows World Black Persons Want Garden Mother Race Book Angry Ideas Sometimes Fiction Firsts Lines

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

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