The resistance to my work, and to my way of writing, has been there from the beginning. The first things I wrote… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
I didn't know it was possible to be successful as a writer, so I wasn't afraid to fail. — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
People think if you describe someone with glistening brown skin you're writing about race, as if the whole of the African diaspora… — 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
If I describe a person's physical appearance in my writing, which I often do, especially in fiction, I never say someone is… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
Everything I do is because of writing. If I go for a walk, it's because I'm thinking of writing. I go look… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
I write a lot in my head. The revision goes on internally. It's not spontaneous and it doesn't have a schedule. — 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
I'm writing out of desperation. I felt compelled to write to make sense of it to myself - so I don't end… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
When I start to write something, I suppose I want it to change me, to make me into something not myself. — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
In my writing, I'm often describing a universal situation. A situation in which human beings often choose to violate each other. Sometimes… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
When I'm writing, I think about the garden, and when I'm in the garden I think about writing. I do a lot… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
I wrote home to say how lovely everything was, and I used flourishing words and phrases, as if I were living life… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
For me, writing isn't a way of being public or private; it's just a way of being. The process is always full… — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
if I'd thought that nobody would like it as I was writing it, I would have written it even more. But I… — 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
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
For me, writing isn't a way of being public or private; it's just a way of being. The process is always full… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
"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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“Do you see the queer thing about people like me? Sometimes we hold your retribution.” — Jamaica Kincaid Copy Share Image
