Time is the element that controls the consciousness, the very being of the people. — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
When I write a book, I hope to be beyond mortal by the time I'm finished. — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
When I write nonfiction, it's always absolutely true. There will be no moment in my nonfiction where I have made something up… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
At the time I was taught to read, it was an Eden-like time of my life. My mother adored me. Everyone adored… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
The garden has taught me to live, to appreciate the times when things are fallow and when they're not. — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
That was the moment he got the idea he possessed me in a certain way, and that was the moment I grew… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
“But I seemed unable to do anything that pleased anyone and that included me, my own self, though at that time I… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
I read about writers who have routines. They write at certain times of the day. I can't do that. I am always… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
The past is a room full of baggage and rubbish and sometimes things that are of use, but if they are of… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
Everyone who knew me as a child, they say they're not surprised that I became a writer because I wrote all the… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
Something settiled inside me, something heavy and hard. It stayed there, and i could not think of one thing to make it… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
You must bite the hand that feeds you. You are perhaps always told the opposite of this. The opposite of this is… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
You know how some people write every day at a certain point? I'm not like that. I carry something around for a… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
America is not so much a country as it is an idea, and that must be why so many people are drawn… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
Gardeners (or just plain simple writers who write about the garden) always have something they like intensely and in particular, right at… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
One day I was living silently in a personal hell, without anyone to tell what I felt, without even knowing that the… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
The strange thing about my life is that I came to America at about the time when racial attitudes were changing. This… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
No matter how happy I had been in the past I do not long for it. The present is always the moment… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
Of course, every time I end a book, I look down at myself and I'm just the same. I'm always disappointed that… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
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… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
The slave trade was globalism. Why people insist that globalism, after its hideous history, is a good thing, I do not know. — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
I have no credentials. I have no money. I literally come from a poor place. I was a servant. I dropped out of college.… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
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… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
"Race." I really can't understand it as anything other than something people say. The people who have said that you and I are both… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
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."… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
in the place I am from ... a grave is topped off with a huge mound of loose earth - carelessly, as if piled… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
I like melancholy. I like to pretend that I'm alone in the world and I'm just sort of abandoned. — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
I come from the small island of Antigua and I always wanted to write; I just didn't know that it was possible. — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
“Have you ever wondered to yourself why it is that all people like me seem to have learned from you is how to imprison… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
Love and hatred don't take turns; they exist side by side at the same time. And one's duty, one's obligation every day, is to… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
“Do you see the queer thing about people like me? Sometimes we hold your retribution.” — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
I didn't really understand racism because I grew up in an all-black society, so I didn't see how it was possible not to like… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
A great piece of literature encompasses all that is and all that will be. — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
The people who invented race, who grouped us together as "black," were inventing and categorizing their ability to do something vicious and wrong. — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share
