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Jamaica Kincaid Quotes

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 Harvard as the "Professor of African and African American studies in Residence" at Harvard during the academic year.

✵ 25. May 1949
Jamaica Kincaid photo

Works

Lucy
Lucy
Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid: 13   quotes 0   likes

Famous Jamaica Kincaid Quotes

“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.”

Jamaica Kincaid

Source: The Autobiography of My Mother

“That was the moment he got the idea he possessed me in a certain way, and that was the moment I grew tired of him.”

Jamaica Kincaid Lucy

Source: Lucy

“The inevitable is no less a shock just because it is inevitable.”

Jamaica Kincaid

Source: The Autobiography of My Mother

“Friendship is a simple thing, and yet complicated; friendship is on the surface, something natural, something taken for granted, and yet underneath one could find worlds.”

Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid Quotes

“No matter how happy I had been in the past I do not long for it. The present is always the moment for which I love.”

Jamaica Kincaid

Source: The Autobiography of My Mother

Love , Past , Happiness

“I understood that I was inventing myself, and that I was doing this more in the way of a painter than in the way of a scientist. I could not count on precision or calculation; I could only count on intuition.”

Jamaica Kincaid Lucy

Source: Lucy

Way

“In the place I’m from you don’t have much room. You have the sea. If you step on the sea, you sink. The only thing the sea can do is take you away. People living on a tiny island are not expected to have deep thoughts about how they live, their right to live. You can have little conflicts, disagreements about what side of the street to walk on, but you cannot disagree that perhaps there should not be a street there. You cannot disagree about fundamental things, which is what an artist would do. All they’re left with is a kind of pastoral beauty, a kind of natural beauty, and wonderful trinkets…”

Jamaica Kincaid

On the limited opportunities in her country of origin in “Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?” https://www.guernicamag.com/does-truth-have-a-tone/ in Guernica (2013 Jun 17)

Beauty , Sea , People , Nature

“The thing about writing in America—and I just recently understood this—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. A professional writer is a joke. You write because you can’t do anything else, and then you have another job. 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. 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. Writing is not a profession. It’s a calling. It’s almost holy…”

Jamaica Kincaid

On her views of writing in “Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?” https://www.guernicamag.com/does-truth-have-a-tone/ in Guernica (2013 Jun 17)

School , Law , Success

“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. 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.”

Jamaica Kincaid

On her obsession with writing in “Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?” https://www.guernicamag.com/does-truth-have-a-tone/ in Guernica (2013 Jun 17)

Flowers , Thinking

“I don’t like to hear people speaking in my work. I like reading it, and I marvel at people who can do it well. And there’s something when you see it done well. It’s just so terrific. But I’m not able to do it.”

Jamaica Kincaid

On the lack of dialogue in her works in “An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid” https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-jamaica-kincaid/ in The Believer (2003 Jul 1)

People , Reading

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