He must have smiled at me, though I don't really know, but I don't like to think that I would love someone who hadn't first smiled at me. Jamaica Kincaid More Quotes by Jamaica Kincaid More Quotes From Jamaica Kincaid 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 race writing thinking the first step in claiming yourself is anger. You get mad. And you can't do anything before you get angry. And I recommend getting very angry to everyone, anyone. Jamaica Kincaid mad anger firsts I'm always surprised to hear or read my work described, "In angry tones, she says." No! In truthful tones! Does truth have a tone? I don't know. Jamaica Kincaid tone truthful doe The garden has taught me to live, to appreciate the times when things are fallow and when they're not. Jamaica Kincaid taught appreciate garden 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." Jamaica Kincaid pieces black calling Here I am, a product of something really vicious, product of the Atlantic slave trade. And yet, I give nary a thought to some of the awful things happening right now in the world. Jamaica Kincaid here-i-am giving world But you know, where did the Brontes go to college? Where did George Eliot go to college? Where did Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson or George Washington go? Did George Washington go to college? This idea which we now have that people ought to have these credentials is really ridiculous. Where did Homer go to college? Jamaica Kincaid college teaching ideas I'm writing out of desperation. I felt compelled to write to make sense of it to myself - so I don't end up saying peculiar things like 'I'm black and I'm proud.' I write so I don't end up as a set of slogans and clichés. Jamaica Kincaid black peculiar writing The truth we have to face about the world we live in is that it's driven by profit, and contradictions and doubts are not profitable. They yield wisdom, but wisdom is not profitable. I find pleasure in doubt, but let's face it, my pleasure is not very profitable. To me, the truth is that things mean many things at once, and all of them opposed to each other, and all of them true. Jamaica Kincaid yield truth mean I write out of defiance. Jamaica Kincaid defiance writing 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. Jamaica Kincaid ugly-things stupid travel This naming of things is so crucial to possession - a spiritual padlock with the key thrown irretrievably away - that it is a murder, an erasing, and it is not surprising that when people have felt themselves prey to it (conquest), among their first acts of liberation is to change their names. Jamaica Kincaid keys spiritual names Out of the corner of one eye, I could see my mother. Out of the corner of the other eye, I could see her shadow on the wall, cast there by the lamplight. It was a big and solid shadow, and it looked so much like my mother that I became frightened. For I could not be sure whether for the rest of my life I would be able to tell when it was really my mother and when it was really her shadow standing between me and the rest of the world. Jamaica Kincaid wall eye mother 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 islands wanted writing It was hollow, my triumph, I could feel that, but I held on to it just the same. Jamaica Kincaid hollow triumph feels The shadow of my mother danced around the room to a tune that my own shadow sang. Jamaica Kincaid shadow tunes mother I had come to feel that my mother's love for me was designed solely to make me into an echo of her; and I didn't know why, but I felt that I would rather be dead than become just an echo of someone. Jamaica Kincaid echoes mother feels I'm trying to earn a living in the way that is most enjoyable to me. I love the world of literature, and I hope to support myself in it. Jamaica Kincaid support literature trying Gardening is really an extended form of reading, of history and philosophy. The garden itself has become like writing a book. I walk around and walk around. Apparently people often see me standing there and they wave to me and I don't see them because I am reading the landscape. Jamaica Kincaid reading philosophy book I'm sometimes afraid I'll cross a line and it'll be difficult to come back, say, to dinner. Jamaica Kincaid dinner lines sometimes
