283 Quotes by Jamaica Kincaid

I liked that sentence then and I like that sentence now but then I had no way of making any sense of it, I could only keep it in my mind's eye, where it rested and grew in the embryo that would become my imagination

Je suis si vulnérable aux besoins et à l'influence des membres de ma famille que de temps en temps je m'en tiens à l'écart. Je ne leur écris pas. Je ne leur rends pas visite. Je ne mens pas, je ne nie pas, je me tiens seulement à l'écart.

You mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?

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. And so I made pleasant little noises that showed both modesty and appreciation, but inside I was making a vow to erase from my mind, line by line, every word of that poem.

That is how I came to think that heavy and hard was the beginning of living, real living; and though I might not end up with a mark on my cheek, I had no doubt that I would end up with a mark somewhere.

I was a new person then, I knew things I had not known before, I knew things that you can know only if you have been through what I had just been through.

Who you are is a mystery no one can answer, not even you.

No matter how happy I had been in the past I do not long for it. The present is always the moment for which I love.

It is sad that unless you are born a god, your life,from its very beginning, is a mystery to you.