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 KincaidBut 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 KincaidLove and hatred don't take turns; they exist side by side at the same time. And one's duty, one's obligation every day, is to choose to follow the nobler one.
Jamaica KincaidGardening 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 Kincaidin the place I am from ... a grave is topped off with a huge mound of loose earth - carelessly, as if piled up in child's play, not serious at all - because death is just another way of being, and the dead will not stay put, and sometimes the actions of the dead are more significant, more profound, than their actions in life, and no structure of concrete or stone can contain them.
Jamaica Kincaid