Jamaica Kincaid Quotes - Page 6

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• Of course, every time I end a book, I look down at myself and I'm just the same. I'm always disappointed that I'm just the same, but not enough to never do it again!

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Book, Looks, Enough

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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• 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.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Real, Past, Use

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

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Writing, Want

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. March 24, 2011.

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• The families of rabbits or woodchucks will eat the salad greens just before they are ready to be picked; I plot ways to kill these animals but can never bring myself to do it.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Animal, Rabbits, Plot

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• 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.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Inspiring, Mothers Day, Children

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• It's very funny, American society: White culture can do all sorts of things and get away with it, but the minute a black person does it, it's interpreted in some way.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  White, Black, Doe

  "'Our Sassy Black Friend' Jamaica Kincaid". Interview with Hannah Levintova, www.motherjones.com. January/February 2013.

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• My disappointments stand up and grow ever taller. They will not be lost to me.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Disappointment, Lost, Grows

  Jamaica Kincaid (2000). “At the Bottom of the River”, p.23, Macmillan

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• I swim in a shaft of light, upside down, and I can see myself clearly, through and through, from every angle. Perhaps I stand on the brink of a great discovery.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Light, Discovery, Swim

  Jamaica Kincaid (2000). “At the Bottom of the River”, p.21, Macmillan

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• 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

  Writing, Islands, Wanted

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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• I like cooking, but I think someone else ought to do the dishes.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Thinking, Cooking, Dishes

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• It's not that I'm a very good person. It's that I think I should at least look at the ways in which I am not a good person, the ways in which I so readily become the person who would not notice that the wonderful clothing I'm wearing someone is probably dying for.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Thinking, Dying, Looks

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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• There are things that make us choose, on certain days, on certain nights, the opposite of love, in all its variations. But I want to acknowledge that with love and hate it's not simply one or the other. It's at least two, three, four, five different emotions existing at once, side by side, a broad spectrum of things alive.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Hate, Night, Opposites

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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• I didn't know it was possible to be successful as a writer, so I wasn't afraid to fail.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Successful, Failing, Afraid To Fail

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• The African-American is often used, and has conspired with the rest of America to be used, as a diversion from America's problems. I wish African-Americans would stop contributing to this sideshow. I also wish all African-Americans would cease to sing and dance just for a generation. I think we provide too much entertainment.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Thinking, Wish, Problem

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

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Writing, Sound, Novel

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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• Most of the nations that have serious gardening cultures have, or had, empires. You can't have this luxury of pleasure without somebody paying for it. This is nice to know. It's nice to know that when you sit down to enjoy a plate of strawberries, somebody got paid very little so that you could have your strawberries. It doesn't mean the strawberries will taste different, but it's nice to enjoy things less than we do. We enjoy things far too much, and it leads to incredible pain and suffering.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Pain, Nice, Mean

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• I loved Charlotte Bronte when I was little, and I wanted to be Charlotte Bronte the way people want to be a princess.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Princess, People, Want

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• 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.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Writing, School, Doctors

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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• I'll read anything. In fact, I'll read while I'm doing other things, which is not a good idea.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Ideas, Facts, Good Ideas

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• 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.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Writing, Thinking, Race

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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• 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."

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Writing, Race, People

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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• It's too easy to say this or that is "race," and that has been a vehicle for an incredible amount of wrong in the world.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Race, World, Incredibles

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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• I was then at the height of my two-facedness: that is, outside I seemed one way, inside I was another; outside false, inside true.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Two, Height, Way

  Jamaica Kincaid (2002). “Lucy: A Novel”, p.18, Macmillan

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• 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.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Kitchen, World, Lines

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• 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.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Writing, Crap, Ifs

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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