Home / Authors / Jamaica Kincaid

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.

Filter quotes by topic

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

“Gardening is really an extended form of reading, of history and philosophy. The garden itself has become like writing a book. I walk around and walk around. Apparently people often see me standing there and they wave to me and I don't see them because I am reading the landscape.”

People Writing Book Philosophy Form Reading Walks Garden Standing Wave Landscape Gardening Writing A Book Standing There

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I write out of defiance.”

Writing Defiance

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I'm writing out of desperation. I felt compelled to write to make sense of it to myself - so I don't end up saying peculiar things like 'I'm black and I'm proud.' I write so I don't end up as a set of slogans and clichés.”

Writing Ends Felt Black Proud Make Sense Peculiar Desperation Compelled Slogans

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 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.”

Thinking Way Writing Hard Problem Difficulty Happy Endings Reviewers

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“When I start to write something, I suppose I want it to change me, to make me into something not myself.”

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“When I write a book, I hope to be beyond mortal by the time I'm finished.”

Writing Book Finished Mortals

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I come from the small island of Antigua and I always wanted to write; I just didn't know that it was possible.”

Knows Writing Wanted Islands

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

“What I really want to write about is injustice and justice, and the different ways human beings organize the two.”

Way Want Writing Humans Two Different Justice Human Beings Injustice Different Ways Organize

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“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.”

Way Writing Firsts Long Has Beens Stories Three Fiction Rivers Bottom Sentences Resistance My Way Department Editors Short Story Printed New Yorkers Objections One Sentence

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“My writing has always been met with derision or dismissal.”

Writing Mets Derision Dismissal

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“The thing about writing in America is that writers in America have an arc. You enter writing as a career, you expect to be successful, and really it's the wrong thing. It's not a profession.”

Writing America Careers Successful Profession Being Successful Wrong Things Arcs

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“A professional writer is a joke. You write because you can't do anything else, and then you have another job.”

Writing Jobs Jokes

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

“Writing is not a profession. It's a calling. It's almost holy.”

Writing Holy Calling Profession

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

“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

“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."”

Knows Writing Humans Persons Doe Sometimes Happens Black Term Human Beings White Situation Universal Like Me Describing Black White

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“In my writing I'm trying to explore the violations people commit upon each other. And the important thing isn't whether I'm angry. The more important thing is, is it true? Do these things really happen?”

People Writing Trying Important Happens Angry Important Things Commit Violation

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“The sound of words in a novel is a pretty amazing thing, and I am concerned with the sound of every word I write.”

Writing Sound Novel Concerned Amazing Things

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“In my writing I'm trying to explore the violations people commit upon each other.”

People Writing Trying Commit

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“For me, writing isn't a way of being public or private; it's just a way of being. The process is always full of pain, but I like that. It's a reality, and I just accept it as something not to be avoided. This is the life I have. This is the life I write about.”

Writing Reality Pain Accepting

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

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

Writing Important Crafts

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I read about writers who have routines. They write at certain times of the day. I can't do that. I am always writing-but in my head.”

Writing I Can Certain

Author: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.”

Thinking Writing Garden

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“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.”

Writing Moments Reality Desire Justice Simple Space Particular Garden Borders Gardener

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.”

People Writing Feelings Would Be Lost Defiance Antagonism

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“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.”

Thinking Writing Believe Particular Ought Paper Don't Believe Committed Nonsense Thank God Sensibility Declaration

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I can write anywhere. I actually wrote more than I ever did when I had small children. My children were never a hindrance.”

Writing Children I Can My Children Small Child Hindrance

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I write a lot in my head. The revision goes on internally. It's not spontaneous and it doesn't have a schedule.”

Writing Goes On Schedules Spontaneous Revision

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

Lucy: A NovelRelated source material

A Small PlaceRelated source material

The Autobiography of My Mother: A NovelRelated source material

My BrotherRelated source material

At the Bottom of the RiverRelated source material

Annie JohnRelated source material

In the Garden: Essays on Nature and GrowingRelated source material

LucyRelated source material

Annie John: A NovelRelated source material

My Garden (Book)Related source material

Similar Authors

George SaundersBrowse related quotes
David SedarisBrowse related quotes
Paul AusterBrowse related quotes
Stephen KingBrowse related quotes
Sandra CisnerosBrowse related quotes
Joyce Carol OatesBrowse related quotes
Chuck KlostermanBrowse related quotes
Anne LamottBrowse related quotes
Junot DiazBrowse related quotes
Salman RushdieBrowse related quotes