Caribbean Quotes

“You’re that lady,” Leo said. “The one who was named after Caribbean music.”
Her eyes glinted murderously. “Caribbean music.”
“Yeah. Reggae?” Leo shook his head. “Merengue? Hold on, I’ll get it.”
He snapped his fingers. “Calypso!”
― Rick Riordan, The House of Hades

“It was the kind of town that made you feel like Humphrey Bogart: you came in on a bumpy little plane, and, for some mysterious reason, got a private room with balcony overlooking the town and the harbor; then you sat there and drank until something happened.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary

“When Cupid takes aim, the stupid of us don’t know to duck.”
― Patricia D'Arcy Laughlin, Sacrifices Beyond Kingdoms: A Provocative Romance Torn Between Continents and Cultures

“The West Indian is not exactly hostile to change, but he is not much inclined to believe in it. This comes from a piece of wisdom that his climate of eternal summer teaches him. It is that, under all the parade of human effort and noise, today is like yesterday, and tomorrow will be like today; that existence is a wheel of recurring patterns from which no one escapes; that all anybody does in this life is live for a while and then die for good, without finding out much; and that therefore the idea is to take things easy and enjoy the passing time under the sun. The white people charging hopefully around the islands these days in the noon glare, making deals, bulldozing airstrips, hammering up hotels, laying out marinas, opening new banks, night clubs, and gift shops, are to him merely a passing plague. They have come before and gone before.”
― Herman Wouk, Don't Stop the Carnival

“My African roots made me what I am today. They’re the reason I’m from the Dominican Republic. They’re the reason I exist at all. To these roots I owe everything.”
― Junot Díaz

“I am persecuted because of my writings, I think, therefore, that I should write some more.”
― Dr. Eric Williams, History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago

“Midnight Omen Deja vu" - Because everyone should experience love in the Caribbean...at least once in a lifetime.”
― Marti Melville

“Some say that because the United States was wrong before, it cannot possibly be right now, or has not the right to be right. (The British Empire sent a fleet to Africa and the Caribbean to maintain the slave trade while the very same empire later sent another fleet to enforce abolition. I would not have opposed the second policy because of my objections to the first; rather it seems to me that the second policy was morally necessitated by its predecessor.)”
― Christopher Hitchens, A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq

“What I see is the millions of people, of whom I am just one, made orphans: no motherland, no fatherland, no gods, no mounds of earth for holy ground, no excess of love which might lead to the things that an excess of love sometimes brings, and worst and most painful of all, no tongue. (For isn't it odd that the only language I have in which to speak of this crime is the language of the criminal who committed the crime? And what can that really mean? For the language of the criminal can contain only the goodness of the criminal's deed. The language of the criminal can explain and express the deed only from the criminal's point of view. It cannot contain the horror of the deed, the injustice of the deed, the agony, the humiliation inflicted one me.”
― Jamaica Kincaid

“The night-soil men can see a bird walking in trees. It isn't a bird. It is a woman who has removed her skin and is on her way to drink the blood of her secret enemies. It is a woman who has left her skin i a corner of a house made out of wood. It is a woman who is reasonable and admires honeybees in the hibiscus.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, At the Bottom of the River

“Waves crack with wicked fury against me ship's hull while ocean currents rage as the full moon rises o're the sea."
(Cutthroat's Omen: A Crimson Dawn)”
― Capt. John Phillips circa 1723

“But no matter what the truth, remember: Dominicans are Caribbean and therefore have an extraordinary tolerance for extreme phenomena”
― Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“Seigneur je suis très fatigué.
Je suis né fatigué.
Et j'ai beaucoup marché depuis le chant du coq
Et le morne est bien haut qui mène à leur école.
Seigneur, je ne veux plus aller à leur école,
Faites, je vous en prie, que je n'y aille plus.
Je veux suivre mon père dans les ravines fraîches
Quand la nuit flotte encore dans le mystère des bois
Où glissent les esprits que l'aube vient chasser.
Je veux aller pieds nus par les rouges sentiers
Que cuisent les flammes de midi,
Je veux dormir ma sieste au pied des lourds manguiers,
Je veux me réveiller
Lorsque là-bas mugit la sirène des blancs
Et que l'Usine
Sur l'océan des cannes
Comme un bateau ancré
Vomit dans la campagne son équipage nègre...
Seigneur, je ne veux plus aller à leur école,
Faites, je vous en prie, que je n'y aille plus.
Ils racontent qu'il faut qu'un petit nègre y aille
Pour qu'il devienne pareil
Aux messieurs de la ville
Aux messieurs comme il faut
Mais moi je ne veux pas
Devenir, comme ils disent,
Un monsieur de la ville,
Un monsieur comme il faut.
Je préfère flâner le long des sucreries
Où sont les sacs repus
Que gonfle un sucre brun autant que ma peau brune.
Je préfère vers l'heure où la lune amoureuse
Parle bas à l'oreille des cocotiers penchés
Ecouter ce que dit dans la nuit
La voix cassée d'un vieux qui raconte en fumant
Les histoires de Zamba et de compère Lapin
Et bien d'autres choses encore
Qui ne sont pas dans les livres.
Les nègres, vous le savez, n'ont que trop travaillé.
Pourquoi faut-il de plus apprendre dans les livres
Qui nous parlent de choses qui ne sont point d'ici ?
Et puis elle est vraiment trop triste leur école,
Triste comme
Ces messieurs de la ville,
Ces messieurs comme il faut
Qui ne savent plus danser le soir au clair de lune
Qui ne savent plus marcher sur la chair de leurs pieds
Qui ne savent plus conter les contes aux veillées.
Seigneur, je ne veux plus aller à leur école.”
― Guy Tirolien, Balles d'or: Poèmes (Poésie)

“People must know who dem be, must remember what important.” - Tanty to Nikki in Oh Gad!”
― Joanne C. Hillhouse, Oh Gad!

“To be white in the Caribbean is to have money, power, and the freedom to do anything or nothing - it is, in many cases, to occupy the top rung of society.”
― Sharon Hurley Hall, Exploring Shadeism

“The experience of slavery is the bedrock on which Caribbean society has been founded.”
― Sharon Hurley Hall, Exploring Shadeism

“The word “cannibal,” the English variant of the Spanish word canibal, comes from the word caribal, a reference to the native Carib people in the West Indies, who Columbus thought ate human flesh and from whom the word “Caribbean” originated. By virtue of being Caribbean, all “West Indian” people are already, in a purely linguistic sense, born savage.”
― Safiya Sinclair, Cannibal

“If you want to know how much your past decisions don’t align with your ambitions? Pursue your ambitions relentlessly, tunnel vision focus and watch how your mistakes and past stands in your way. Everything eventually adds up.”
― Crystal Evans, The Country Gyal Journal

“People always ask me what is my favourite thing about Trinidad. It is a hard question because ! love the beaches and the music of Trinidad, but...
I think the food is the best of all!”
― Bilqees Mohammed, Juanita : A bilingual children's book set in Trinidad and Tobago

“As a Caribbean-born, I understand the self as a multi-geometric entropic process always connected with the communal self. I do not seek history as a way to find points of origin, but to articulate historical locations in a traveling interconnected knowledge system that provides solutions for my subjective migrant experience. In a deeper process, the encounter with these places of intersection, the crossroads, could become turning points to return, to depart, to convey, and to arrive to the present. African Aesthetics still nurtures contemporary artistic practices in the Caribbean, as well as in the African Americana Diaspora and the US Latino Diaspora.

Writing the Decolonial Mariposa Ancestral Memory
CARIBBEAN INTRANSIT ART JOURNAL
Vol. 1, Issue 4, Spring 2013.”
― Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet

“Idyllic haven, Magnificent Perspective,
Unique attraction.”
― Serlina Rose, Paradise Isle

“Tall are her mountains,
Deep are her waters,
A haven for all.”
― Serlina Rose, Paradise Isle

“Such divine beauty
Atop rocks, red as life blood -
Landscape highlighted.”
― Serlina Rose, Paradise Isle

“the melodic Humming of splashing droplets from
A beautiful cascade.”
― Serlina Rose, Paradise Isle

“Taste the poetry
Artistic scenery so
Unexplored and bare!”
― Serlina Rose, Exotic Perspective: Book 2

“Gone upon a quest,
Reservoirs like jewels far
As emerald ogled.”
― Serlina Rose, Exotic Perspective: Book 2

“Refreshing river,
Summer excursions permit
Thrill seeking frolic.”
― Serlina Rose, Exotic Perspective: Book 2

“Breathtaking views, beautiful beaches,
Refreshing clear waters and tropical rainforests
It all highlights a unique island.”
― Serlina Rose, Exotic Perspective: Book 2

“Inch by inch, the healing water,
Gently ripple waves of kindness”
― Serlina Rose, Exotic Perspective: Book 2

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet”
― Vilma Ruddock, Jamaican Genealogy Research: A Practical Guide to the Best Resources for Tracing Your Ancestry