Lucy Quotes

“I wish that I could love someone so much that I would die from it.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“That was the moment he got the idea he possessed me in a certain way, and that was the moment I grew tired of him.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“I understood that I was inventing myself, and that I was doing this more in the way of a painter than in the way of a scientist. I could not count on precision or calculation; I could only count on intuition.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“Why is a picture of something real eventually more exciting than the thing itself?”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“Everybody knew that men have no morals, that they do not know how to behave, that they do not know how to treat other people. It was why men like laws so much; it was why they had to invent such things-they need a guide. When they are not sure what to do, they consult this guide. If the guide gives them advice they don't like, they change the guide.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“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, Lucy

“Lucy, a girl's name for Lucifer. That my mother would have found me devil-like did not surprise me, for I often thought of her as god-like, and are not the children of gods devils? I did not grow to like the name Lucy-I would have much preferred to be called Lucifer outright-but whenever I saw my name I always reached out to give it a strong embrace.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“I did not care about being a virgin and had long been looking forward to the day when I could rid myself of that status, but when I saw how much it mattered to him to be the first boy I had been with, I could not five him such a hold over me.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“Of course his life could be found in the pages of a book; I had just begun to notice that the lives of men always are.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“Isn't it the most blissful thing in the world to be away from everything you have ever known--to be so far away that you don't even know yourself anymore and you're not sure you ever want to come back to all of the things you're a part of?”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“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, Lucy

“In a daydream I used to have, all these places were points of happiness to me; all these places were lifeboats to my small drowning soul, for I would imagine myself entering and leaving them, and just that - entering and leaving over and over again - would see me through a bad feeling I did not have a name for. I only knew it felt a little like sadness but heavier than that.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“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, Lucy

“It was hollow, my triumph, I could feel that, but I held on to it just the same.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“How do you get to be a person who is made miserable because the weather changed its mind, because the weather doesn't live up to your expectations? How do you get to be that way?”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“But mostly I had books - so many books, and they were mine; I would not have to part with them. It had always been a dream of mine to just own a lot of books, to never part with a book once I had read it.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“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.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“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, Lucy

“On their way to freedom, some people find riches, some people find death.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“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.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“Bad sex. I wondered what exactly did she mean. From my mother I had gathered that the experience could leave you feeling indifferent, that during it you might make out the grocery list, pick a style of curtains, memorize a subtle but choice insult for people who imagined themselves above you. But I had never imagined the word 'bad' could be applied to it, and as soon as she said it I knew what she meant: it was like wanting a sugar apple and getting a spoiled one; and while you're eating the spoiled one, the memory of a good tasting one will not go away.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“I had never imagined my father dying. I had never inagined my parents dying. When I told Mariah this, she said that no one ever thinks their parents will die, ever, and I had to suppress the annoyance I felt at her for once again telling me about everybody when I told her something about myself.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“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, Lucy

“I never wanted to live in that place again, but if for some reason I was forced to live there again, I would never accept the harsh judgments made against me by people whose only power to do so was that they had known me from the moment I was born.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“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.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“I was no longer in a tropical zone, and this realization now entered my life like a flow of water dividing formerly dry and solid ground, creating two banks, one of which was my past - so familiar and predictable that even my unhappiness then made me happy now just to think of it - the other my future, a gray blank, an overcast seascape on which rain was falling and no boats were in sight. I was no longer in a tropical zone and I felt cold inside and out, the first time such a sensation had come over me.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“I was numb, but it was from not knowing just what this new life would hold for me.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“I had one more thing to add to my expanding world.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“Her speech on fairy tales always amused me, because I had in my head a long list of things that contributed to wrong expectations in the world, and somehow fairy tales did not make an appearance on it.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

“I wish I could love someone so much that I would die from it.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy