Quotes by Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid

…yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

Determined

Memories

Past

“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 “black” and therefore deserve a certain kind of interaction with the world, they make race. I can’t take them seriously.

Black

People

Race

A great piece of literature encompasses all that is and all that will be.

Literature

Pieces

A piece of cloth that is called “linen” has more validity than calling you and me “black” or “negro.” “Cotton” has more validity as cotton than yours and my being “black.”

Black

Calling

Pieces

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

Jobs

Jokes

Writing

A psychiatrist once asked me to draw a picture of my family. This is when I was a member of a family of four. I drew the three other people in the family first, bodies and heads. And then, last, I began to draw myself – but gave up.

Family First

Firsts

People

A tourist is an ugly human being.

Humans

Tourists

Ugly

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.

Believe

Thinking

Writing

America is not so much a country as it is an idea, and that must be why so many people are drawn to it, the idea of it, the idea that you might be free of your past, free of the traditions that kept you in your own traditions – that is the idea of it: freedom from your very own self.

Country

Past

Self

An ugly thing, that is what you are when you become a tourist, an ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing, a piece of rubbish pausing here and there to gaze at this and taste that, and it will never occur to you that the people who inhabit the place in which you have just paused cannot stand you.

Stupid

Travel

Ugly Things

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Abandoned

Able

Accused

Add

Affair

Afraid To Fail

Alive

America

American Culture

Anger

Angry

Animal

Answers

Appreciate

Attitude

Beautiful

Bed

Being Misunderstood

Believe

Belittle

Black

Book

Boredom

Born

Bravery

Brother

Calling

Careers

Certain

Charming

Children

Claims

College

Complicated

Consciousness

Cooking

Cool Love

Country

Crafts

Crap

Criticism

Crush

Culture

Dark

Daughter

Death

Decision

Defiance

Depressing

Determined

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid

…yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

“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 “black” and therefore deserve a certain kind of interaction with the world, they make race. I can’t take them seriously.

A great piece of literature encompasses all that is and all that will be.

A piece of cloth that is called “linen” has more validity than calling you and me “black” or “negro.” “Cotton” has more validity as cotton than yours and my being “black.”

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

A psychiatrist once asked me to draw a picture of my family. This is when I was a member of a family of four. I drew the three other people in the family first, bodies and heads. And then, last, I began to draw myself – but gave up.

A tourist is an ugly human being.

America is not so much a country as it is an idea, and that must be why so many people are drawn to it, the idea of it, the idea that you might be free of your past, free of the traditions that kept you in your own traditions – that is the idea of it: freedom from your very own self.

An ugly thing, that is what you are when you become a tourist, an ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing, a piece of rubbish pausing here and there to gaze at this and taste that, and it will never occur to you that the people who inhabit the place in which you have just paused cannot stand you.

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Topics by Jamaica Kincaid

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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