Someone who knew me well once accused me of being unromantic. And that's probably true: I don't trust romance.

I come from the small island of Antigua and I always wanted to write; I just didn't know that it was possible.

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman.

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.

I didn't know it was possible to be successful as a writer, so I wasn't afraid to fail.

I wrote home to say how lovely everything was, and I used flourishing words and phrases, as if I were living life in a greeting card - the kind that has a satin ribbon on it, and quilted hearts and roses, and is expected to be so precious to the person receiving it that the manufacturer has placed a leaf of plastic on the front to protect it.

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.