Jamaica Kincaid Quotes

I showed up in L.A. with $500 and a backpack and I stayed at a shelter, so nobody handed me anything. I worked for every single thing that I have.

America is built around this premise that you can do it, and there are an awful lot of people who are unlikely to have done it who did.

Nothing has been handed to me my entire life. You have to go there and take it. My mom taught me that.

I lived below the poverty line when I was young and starting out as a writer. But my wife and I kept trying to do things better, as anyone with ambition does. But just because you're trying doesn't mean you're always going to succeed.

I've never had it easy. There have been fortunate coincidences and instances, but nothing has fallen into my lap. Whatever I've achieved has always been through sheer hard work.

I don't want no handouts. I want to get it out the mud.

I been through some things but I worked hard to get to where I'm at.

Everyone has egos, and you want to come out on top. You have to pick yourself up and go at it again.

When I was coming up as an entrepreneur, I had to fight for everything I got, and there was no clear roadmap of how to be successful.

Some people are born with very little; some are fortunate enough to have it all. When I grew up, we didn't have much. I had to hustle to get what I wanted... but I had that hunger for more. I didn't always make the right choices, but I learned from my mistakes.

I started off as a model and struggled for some time until I got a break as an actress. I was too stubborn to let go and was sure I was in the right place at the right time. I just fought and I think that's how I am where I am today.

Luck? I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work - and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't.

Circumstances have rarely favored great men. A lowly beginning is no bar to a great career. The boy who works his way through college may have a hard time of it, but he will learn how to work his way in life, and will usually take higher rank in school and in after life than his classmate who is the son of a millionaire.

Elizabeth Keckley was a woman of remarkable strength, courage, perseverance, and dignity. She was exceptionally talented, but also very diligent and ambitious, and together those qualities enabled her to deliver herself from slavery and become a successful businesswoman.

I did everything I could to stay in college and pay my own way, so I think that if success hadn't come so quickly, I would still be pursuing it.

My advice: Don't quit. When I got to New York City, I lived so far below the poverty line, because I didn't give in and get a job at 7-Eleven. I think you can thrive in misery.

I've had a normal life, but I have struggled to get here. It hasn't been handed to me and it hasn't been easy.

I'm not anybody's judge; I don't know what motivates people to do what they do. But I have a lot of admiration for anybody who can start with absolutely nothing and make a little something out of it.

Put paying your dues and all that puts so much into being a success. You have an understanding of what it's about, being on your own for three or four years and living day to day on $3, or living in an apartment with no electricity.

If you're from a poor background, you have to work even harder. But that's what makes you who you are.

My father graduated from high school and didn't go to college and still found his way.

If America had a motto, it would be pull yourself up by the bootstraps, work harder than the next guy, have a goal and achieve it.

I train like I never had nothing 'cause I ain't never had nothing.

Sometimes the times were dark and the outlook was lonesome, but where there is a will, there is a way. I pitched in and dug at my work until now I am where I am.

I am the perfect example that if you give somebody a chance, especially here in the United States, one can find the way.