People only say I'm angry because I'm black and I'm a woman. But all sorts of people write with strong feeling, the way I do.
Interpretation
The quote expresses frustration over being dismissed due to race and gender, highlighting that strong emotions in writing are universal.
Jamaica Kincaid's quote confronts the biases and stereotypes surrounding race and gender, suggesting that the intensity of emotion in writing is not limited to any particular identity. It underscores the importance of recognizing diverse voices and validating their expressions rather than attributing their feelings to their racial or gendered identities.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the representation of women of color in literature.
Something settiled inside me, something heavy and hard. It stayed there, and i could not think of one thing to make it go away. I thought, So this must be living, this must be the beginning of the time people later refer to as 'years ago, when I was young'.
Gardeners (or just plain simple writers who write about the garden) always have something they like intensely and in particular, right at the moment you engage them in the reality of the borders they cultivate, the space in the garden they occupy at any moment, they like in particular this, or they like in particular that.
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.
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.
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.
I come from a little island with the Caribbean Sea on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. I come from, really, nowhere, and for me, the fiction and the nonfiction, creative or otherwise, all come from the same place.
Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit oneβs emotions.
This formidable censor of the public functionaries [the press], by arraigning them at the tribunal of public opinion, produces reform peaceably, which must otherwise be done by revolution. It is also the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man and improving him as a rational, moral, and social being.
A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes
True devotion is for itself: not to desire heaven nor to fear hell.
All big things are made up of trifles. My entire life has been built on trifles.
Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers of the system of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, those who sat round him intreated and implored; and self-love did not suffer him to suspect that they went away and laughed.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.