Jamaica Kincaid

But when my eyes rested on my mother, I found her beautiful.

No small part of my life was so unimportant that she hadn’t made a note of it, and now she would tell it to me over and over again.

How terrible it must be for all the people who had no one to love them so and no one whom they loved so

loved him so and wished that I had a mother to give him, for, no matter how much my own mother loved him, it could never be the same.

It was in such a paradise that I lived.

That the day might actually come when we would live apart I had never believed.

Sometimes when we looked at each other, it was all we could do not to cry out with happiness

Sometimes when we looked at each other, it was all we could do not to cry out with happiness

In the year I turned fifteen, I felt more unhappy than I had ever imagined anyone could be.

I could only just sit and look at myself, feeling like the oldest person who had ever lived and who had not learned a single thing.