Top 100 Quotes About Jamaica
#1. It is sad that unless you are born a god, your life,from its very beginning, is a mystery to you.
Jamaica Kincaid
#2. I like cooking, but I think someone else ought to do the dishes.
Jamaica Kincaid
#3. If I describe a person's physical appearance in my writing, which I often do, especially in fiction, I never say someone is "black" or "white." I may describe the color of their skin - black eyes, beige skin, blue eyes, dark skin, etc. But I'm not talking about race.
Jamaica Kincaid
#4. CAN'T TAN PON IT LONG ... NAW EAT NO YAM ... NO STEAM FISH ... NOR NO GREEN BANANA
BUT DOWN IN JAMAICA WE GIVE IT TO YOU HOT LIKE A SAUNA..
Sean Paul
#5. In Jamaica, you learn as a child how to roll a joint. Everyone here has tried it. I did too
Usain Bolt
#6. Bob Marley performed the 'One Love Peace' concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There's always been that in black music and culture in general. It's no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what's going on in black life. It's not unusual for hip-hop.
Mos Def
#7. I have no credentials. I have no money. I literally come from a poor place. I was a servant. I dropped out of college. The next thing you know I'm writing for the 'New Yorker,' I have this sort of life, and it must seem annoying to people.
Jamaica Kincaid
#9. In Jamaica, the music is recorded for the sound system, not the iPod. It's about experiencing music together, with other people.
Michael Franti
#10. In a way, a garden is the most useless of creations, the most slippery of creations: it is not like a painting or a piece of sculpture - it won't accrue value as time goes on. Time is its enemy' time passing is merely the countdown for the parting between garden and gardener.
Jamaica Kincaid
#11. In hindsight I can see that my love for the arts began by watching my father and his colleagues perform on stage in Jamaica, and running a muck among the exhibits of fabulous Jamaican art at the National Gallery while mum was upstairs curating.
Michael Hyatt
#12. I've written a book about my mother, and I don't remember anyone going to Antigua or calling up my mother and verifying her life. There is something about this book that drives people mad with the autobiographical question.
Jamaica Kincaid
#13. 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
#14. I'll read anything. In fact, I'll read while I'm doing other things, which is not a good idea.
Jamaica Kincaid
#15. 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
#16. I think in life there is only one absolute truth.
Death ... It's the only definitive horizon, sometime it leaps, runs across mountains and vanishes beyond oceans but the closer you get, the more you see and you know it is the final destination, the absolute truth. We are only living to die.
Crystal Evans
#17. It is true that I am a writer, and I was married to a composer, and I have lived in a small village in New England, but my children are not named Heracles and Persephone, and my daughter doesn't disappear underground every six months and emerge in the spring.
Jamaica Kincaid
#19. Getting to do what I think was my fifth BBC drama with Nikki Amuka-Bird - we've done 'Shoot The Messenger,' 'Five Days,' 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency,' 'Born Equal' and now 'Small Island' - was another highlight for me. And filming in Jamaica was great, too.
David Oyelowo
#20. I began to feel alternately too big and too small. First, I grew so big that I took up the whole street; then I grew so small that nobody could see me - not even if I cried out.
Jamaica Kincaid
#21. I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.
Jamaica Kincaid
#22. Time is the element that controls the consciousness, the very being of the people.
Jamaica Kincaid
#23. Isn't that the last straw; for not only did we have to suffer the unspeakableness of slavery, but the satisfaction to be had from "We made you bastards rich" is taken away, too.
Jamaica Kincaid
#24. But there was no use pretending: I was not the sort of person who counted blessings; I was the sort of person for whom there could never be enough blessings.
Jamaica Kincaid
#25. I'm intent on marketing Jamaica. Jamaica has the best coffee, the best sugar, the best ginger and some of the best cocoa in the world.
Chris Blackwell
#26. I was given a dictionary when I was seven, and I read it because I had nothing else to read. I read it the way you read a book.
Jamaica Kincaid
#27. I read about writers who have routines. They write at certain times of the day. I can't do that. I am always writing-but in my head.
Jamaica Kincaid
#28. 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.
Jamaica Kincaid
#29. She had too much of everything, and so she longed to have less; less, she was sure, would bring her happiness. To me it was a laugh and a relief to observe the unhappiness that too much can bring; I had been so used to observing the reults of too little.
Jamaica Kincaid
#30. You know people exaggerate that all is wild in Jamaica. I think that sometimes people fire a shot to try to make you nervous. They are not trying to hurt you.
Michael Manley
#31. I didn't really understand racism because I grew up in an all-black society, so I didn't see how it was possible not to like me!
Jamaica Kincaid
#32. This is how you bully a man; this is how an man bullies you.
Jamaica Kincaid
#33. The thing about writing in America is that writers in America have an arc. You enter writing as a career, you expect to be successful, and really it's the wrong thing. It's not a profession.
Jamaica Kincaid
#34. I grew up in South Jamaica, Queens, in New York. My parents were very religious churchgoing people. They were very strict. I was never really allowed to indulge in anything vain. Modesty always. I have three brothers and two sisters, so everything was on a budget.
Wynter Gordon
#35. I've come to see that I'm saying something that people generally do not want to hear.
Jamaica Kincaid
#36. Politics is tricky, especially in Jamaica. There are two parties, JLP [Jamaica Labour Party] and PNP [People's National Party], and if I went for one, I would upset supporters of the other. I stay as far from politics as I can.
Usain Bolt
#37. I grew up with coconuts as the main flavor in food in Jamaica. It's part of our culture.
Ziggy Marley
#38. Yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.
Jamaica Kincaid
#39. I understood finding the place you are born in an unbearable prison and wanting something completely different from what you are familiar with, knowing it represents a haven.
Jamaica Kincaid
#40. The thing we call romance is a diversion from something truer, which is life.
Jamaica Kincaid
#41. In the United States, viewers don't get to see a lot of things we can show in other countries. We didn't get to show our naked Twister game from Wild On Jamaica, but we definitely filmed it.
Brooke Burke
#42. The mantra of the National Commercial Bank is 'building a better Jamaica.' If this bank is going to be everlastingly successful, it has to take on the ailments of this society.
Michael Lee-Chin
#43. As a little girl growing up in Southside Jamaica Queens, if anyone would've told me I'd have my own perfume one day, and be able to inspire young black girls everywhere, to go into Macy's or Nordstrom's and see their face staring back at them - I wouldn't believe them.
Nicki Minaj
#44. I think a woman is powerless if she cannot freely claim the right to her reproductive capacity. Society can talk about anything it likes, except a woman's reproductive existence.
Jamaica Kincaid
#45. I didn't know it was possible to be successful as a writer, so I wasn't afraid to fail.
Jamaica Kincaid
#46. Looking at the horizon again, I saw a lone figure coming toward me, but I wasn't frightened because I was sure it was my mother. As I got closer to the figure, I could see that it wasn't my mother, but still I wasn't frightened because I could see that it was a woman.
Jamaica Kincaid
#47. At the time I was taught to read, it was an Eden-like time of my life. My mother adored me. Everyone adored me. So I associate reading with enormous pleasure.
Jamaica Kincaid
#48. 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
#50. The garden has taught me to live, to appreciate the times when things are fallow and when they're not.
Jamaica Kincaid
#52. Technology has changed things, same as everywhere. But the economy has changed drastically. When Jamaica first won independence, our dollar was stronger than the U.S. dollar. Now ours is about 90 to one. That's had a big impact on crime and poverty.
Damian Marley
#53. We knew Down South. Everyone had one. Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico.
Jacqueline Woodson
#54. I was actually born in deep rural Jamaica and came to Kingston as a high school girl.
Portia Simpson-Miller
#55. 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
#56. 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.
Jamaica Kincaid
#57. In isolation I ruthlessly plow the deep silences, seeking my opportunities like a miner seeking veins of treasures. In what shallow glimmering space shall I find what glimmering glory?
Jamaica Kincaid
#58. She always said that she respected and liked us all equally, and I have to say that that attitude didn't go down well with me, accustomed as I was to being singled out and held up in a special way.
Jamaica Kincaid
#59. She talked in one of her memoirs of ignoring her little brother when she was supposed to be looking after him: I liked reading a book much more than I liked looking after him (and even now I like reading a book more than I like looking after my own children ... )
Jamaica Kincaid
#60. When I moved out here to California, I became obsessed with geology. It's impossible not to be interested in the earth if you live in a place like this. I started to read a lot of geology, much to the horror of my friends.
Jamaica Kincaid
#61. I didn't think of myself as an outsider because of my race because ... where I grew up I was the same race as almost everyone else ... It is true that I noticed things that no one else seemed to notice. And I think only people who are outsiders do this.
Jamaica Kincaid
#62. 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
#63. Jamaica full of ghetto, but boy, I tell you: me never see it like that.
Damian Marley
#64. plunge ahead, put one foot in front of the other, straighten your back and your shoulders and everything else that is likely to slump, buck up and go forward, and in this way, every obstacle, be it physical or only imaged, falls face down in obeisance and in absolute defeat...
Jamaica Kincaid
#65. I'm not an American, Do they count the votes in America? I haven't voted in Jamaica either.
Ziggy Marley
#66. I love running in nature. I don't like running on the streets, I don't like running in the city, I don't like running on the concrete. I love running in nature, so Jamaica provides a lot of that for me.
Ziggy Marley
#67. "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.
Jamaica Kincaid
#68. My writing has always been met with derision or dismissal.
Jamaica Kincaid
#69. 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
#70. In 1976, Rastafarians were one of the most violated, persecuted groups in Jamaica. They could be beaten within an inch of their lives, or detained for two years, just for being found in a 'proper' neighbourhood.
Marlon James
#71. I've opened up more by traveling outside Jamaica. It helps me to grow as a person to be outside of my element; to be on my own in a strange place meeting people.
Ziggy Marley
#72. The very best place to be in all the world is St. Mary's parish, Jamaica. And the best spot in St. Mary's is Port Maria, though all of St. Mary's is fine. Old Maker put himself to a lot of trouble to make that part of the island of Jamaica, for everything there is perfect.
Zora Neale Hurston
#73. Growing up in Jamaica, the Pentecostal church wasn't that fiery thing you might think. It was very British, very proper. Hymns. No dancing. Very quiet. Very fundamental.
Grace Jones
#74. At the door I planted a kiss on Paul's mouth with an uncontrollable ardor that I actually did feel-a kiss of treachery, for I could still taste the other man in my mouth.
Jamaica Kincaid
#75. Writing is not a profession. It's a calling. It's almost holy.
Jamaica Kincaid
#76. I'm sometimes afraid I'll cross a line and it'll be difficult to come back, say, to dinner.
Jamaica Kincaid
#77. Jamaica is kind of similar to Miami, but to go from there to Miami, and then Miami to L.A., it's crazy.
Sean Kingston
#78. We've seen many heroes from Jamaica, you know, and to be put in that class or to be looked upon on that level is overwhelming. It's pretty big shoes to fill, you know. I'm a size eight, but I'll try my best.
OMI
#79. I can write anywhere. I actually wrote more than I ever did when I had small children. My children were never a hindrance.
Jamaica Kincaid
#80. I read about this hotel that was great, down in the south of the island, not in a touristy area. I had no particular desire ever to go to Jamaica, but I thought, what the hell? Sounds nice. Let's go!
Jeremy Northam
#81. I wish that I could love someone so much that I would die from it.
Jamaica Kincaid
#82. Jamaica's probably the most dominant island as far as influence goes, as far as music and dancing and culture.
Joey Badass
#83. For me, writing isn't a way of being public or private; it's just a way of being. The process is always full of pain, but I like that. It's a reality, and I just accept it as something not to be avoided.
Jamaica Kincaid
#84. Of course, I now see that good behaviour is the proper posture of the weak, of children.
Jamaica Kincaid
#85. [Unhappiness] comes to you. You come into the world screaming. You cry when you're born because your lungs expand. You breathe. I think that's really kind of significant. You come into the world crying, and it's a sign that you're alive.
Jamaica Kincaid
#87. 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
#88. 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
#89. There's a difference between bravery and rash stupidity.
Jamaica Kincaid
#90. I can't get upset about 'offensive to women' or 'offensive to blacks' or 'offensive to Native Americans' or 'offensive to Jews' ... Offend! I can't get worked up about it. Offend!
Jamaica Kincaid
#91. If I'd thought that nobody would like it as I was writing it, I would have written it even more. But I never think of the audience. I never think of people reading. I never think of people, period.
Jamaica Kincaid
#92. The space between the idea of something and its reality is always wide and deep and dark. The longer they are kept apart - idea of thing, reality of thing - the wider the width, the deeper the depth, the thicker and darker the darkness.
Jamaica Kincaid
#93. I see the calm and hear the calm and know the calm can't last. Not for me, not for him, not for Kingston, not for Jamaica. For
Marlon James
#94. When I start to write something, I suppose I want it to change me, to make me into something not myself.
Jamaica Kincaid
#95. I am not aware of anything below my neck. I live completely in my head.
Jamaica Kincaid
#96. Among the beliefs I held about the world was that being beautiful should not matter to a woman, because it was one of those things that would go away
your beauty would go away,and there wouldn't be anything you could do to bring it back.
Jamaica Kincaid
#97. My relationship with everyone in Jamaica is good.
Usain Bolt
#98. What I really want to write about is injustice and justice, and the different ways human beings organize the two.
Jamaica Kincaid
#99. He lacked tenderness; he was rude; and he had more than a streak of cruelty in him; he was a thief and a liar. He stood for everything she feared and hated and despised; but she knew she could love him ... This was no choice made with the mind.
Daphne Du Maurier
#100. That the world I was in could be soft, lovely, and nourishing was more than I could bear, and so I stood there and wept, for I didn't want to love one more thing that could make my heart break into a million little pieces at my feet.
Jamaica Kincaid
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