Jamaican Quotes

“Nobody love a black girl. Not even herself”
― Nicole Dennis-Benn, Here Comes the Sun

“Take sleep mark death.”
― Glen L. Richards, Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage and Culture

“The people who don't give you a standing ovation for the hurdles you cross are just afraid that you might win the race. They do not cheer you but they sit, lurking on the sidelines, biting their fingernails hoping you will stumble before the end. They secretly wish you will never win this race. But watch out for them, they will be the firstto stand and cheer you when you stand on that podium of success.”
― Crystal Evans, Jamaican Acute Ghetto Itis

“Never be done by one experience.
Lovers who broke your heart
Friends who betrayed you
Family that let you down
Opportunities \ jobs that never worked out.
Whole heap a people you still have not met yet
Whole heap a places you haven't been.
The best may yet still to come.”
― Crystal Evans, Every Man Deserves A Good Jacket II: Babydaddy Series

“It all seems so upside down. Upside down cake. I once had a spectacular mango upside down cake while on vacation in Jamaica. Drenched in caramelized mangos and saturated with Jamaican rum.”
― Jenny Gardiner, Slim to None

“We are children of the world. Travel starts in our minds; we can visit all our “Irie” places and then command our feet to follow”
― Janet Autherine, Island Mindfulness: How to Use the Transformational Power of Mindfulness to Create an Abundant Life

“I get excited about stringing old words together in new ways.”
― Janet Autherine

“Those who are coming from the gutters know that from time to time a piece of us will break off and float back to the floor from whence it came. Wealth can gray your eyes at the edges, money does not make you hover above human qualities, you are only a flawed being with much material gain.”
― Crystal Evans

“I don't keep women friends for too long largely because i do not trust them and i hate gossip. A lot of times i am on the inside looking out and people say if women are avoiding me then it means something is wrong with me and not with them. I look at these female cliques and the lies, pretense and backbiting that keeps them glued together and decide that i want no part of that.”
― Crystal Evans, Jamaican Acute Ghetto Itis

“You have to be careful what you write and not allow self righteousness to cloud your ability to be objective. This story is not about you, it's about people and things that no one else sees. The truth will at times come to you in a blur, unclear, unsettling refusing to leave until you figure out its relevance.”
― Crystal Evans, Every Man Deserves A Good Jacket

“The difference between you and I Dre is that i can take a bad experience and make money off it, You just have to live with yours until time blurs your memory of the details.
Most writers i know aren't beautiful by society's standard. Writing is not modelling but Writer's do have beautiful souls.”
― Crystal Evans, The Bunna Man: Joe Grind Series

“A dog will be a dog regardless of its owner, the same stick that pokes sheep, will impale the goat. Women tend to believe that he won't do to me what he has done to her. A dog will be a dog regardless of its owner. The same stick that smote the yellow snake will smite the black one too.”
― Crystal Evans, Every Man Deserves A Good Jacket II: Babydaddy Series

“I am like that to most people, an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, someone to ask a favour, Rock of Gibraltar.
I called her back.
I listened to her rant.
I repeated these four words i saw somewhere earlier this week, they had become a sort of mantra for me.

LIVE ABOVE THE NOISE

I told her that I'd noticed something about most gossipmongers.
They are stagnant.
I remember i hadn't been to my natal community in two years.
As the sun riseth, i guaranteed when i stepped foot into there that i would find the same set of bingo playing all day women, who knew everybody's business and thought sleeping with someone's man was some sort of achievement:gathered at the same spot.
I did.

People who chat people rarely are good at anything else. They are focused so much on what's going on around them and less on self improvement.
They so busy watching people's business, they miss opportunities for advancement.
Instead of working on their faults and deficiencies, they highlight the flaws of another to detract from their shitty lives.

You cannot live your life at the mercies of another's opinions.
Opinions are like assholes everyone has one.
Yes from time to time we will become rattled by mindless chatter, remember to live above the noise...”
― Crystal Evans, Jamaican Acute-Ghetto-itis: Jamaican Sociological Commentary

“Don't get caught up too much hun. Life is more than this very moment. Don't use this one moment as a true measure of the outcome. You would be surprise at how things fall in place.”
― Crystal Evans, Every Man Deserves A Good Jacket II: Babydaddy Series

“When people tried to bring my ex up or what happened in the past to detract away from the life am living now. I just hit them with a stop mark.
I tell them. "I've moved on, Y'all should too.”
― Crystal Evans, Every Man Deserves A Good Jacket II: Babydaddy Series

“The burden is not my experiences it is my intellect. The way my brain works. My experiences are very similar to most if not all of us born into unfavorable circumstances. We survive and excel. It’s my purview that makes me think something is wrong wid it: for most people. That’s just life.”
― Crystal Evans, Jamaican Acute-Ghetto-itis: Jamaican Sociological Commentary

“Writing is my response to my own crazy world. It's often sporadic, ignited by some noteworthy occurrence in my life. Rarely is it reflective, frequently intrusive. You see sometimes I aim for allegory, but there are certain truths about life that one has to paint as it is, there are ideas that cannot be dressed up.
I more than anyone else understands how suffering and personal experiences influences the creative process. My books are nurtured by happiness and despair. Every experience in my everyday life comes with it owns dripping of medicine and or toxins, lessons that only my interactions with others can effectively teach.

My life is entirely influenced by human behavior and my books are about my culture and human nature. My degree is from HardKnock Life University. Who I am is a reflection of the people who shaped my life. I am their reflection. I am novelist. The only doctorate i have is on life. The reality of life is the only thing I know.I’m”
― Crystal Evans, Jamaican Acute-Ghetto-itis: Jamaican Sociological Commentary

“So I see people mocking my usage of patois… or Jamaican creole which is a form of pidgin created from Afrikaan, Spanish and English languages. This is a Jamaican page by a Jamaican author. The person in the video is Jamaican. It’s common for people to think English is an indication of intelligence albeit only 20% of the world’s population speaks English and only 5% are native English speakers. I mean English itself is a creole of sorts with words from Celtic, Slavic and Latin languages..

Smartest people in the world are Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Indians) their native languages are Hindi, Mandarin and Creole Cantonese. Swahili and Igbo are big creole languages in Africa.

Linguistic discrimination is not even warranted based on how languages are developed.

Glottophobics are as bad as racist with their linguicism.
English is just a superstrate language due to Anglo- Saxon colonization and the British empire…

English is still a superstrate because of large English speaking populations such as America, England, South Africa, Nigeria and Canada.”
― Crystal Evans, Jamaican Patois Guide

“There is a marked difference between brilliance and intellectuality.
Some of us use both words interchangeably to describe people who can use big words.
A number of people are grandiloquent but not wise.
A person can be verbose but not esoteric.
Just as literacy does not equate to intelligence.


There are two types of learnt people in the world.
Some persons are scholars and others are alchemist.

Let me further my thesis on intellectuals.
Now you have a scholar and an alchemist.
The scholar passes exams, memorizes words and phrases, the alchemist has the intellectual prowess to start a whole new fundamental truth, discipline and school of thought because they can create concepts from their own minds without no external inputs.
Alchemist pass exams without studying because they just know how things work or they use context clue.
For that reason not every smart person is a genius.

Alchemist use their brains to change or improve the world with ingenuity and originality.

The alchemist has a way with words, when they speak you stop and listen. The alchemist is witty in any language (Creole or patois).
Let’s renounce the colonial concept that using Anglo-Saxon words is a mark of intelligence.

Eg.
Kartel speaks English- Kartel intelligent yuh fawk.”
― Crystal Evans, Jamaican Acute Ghetto Itis

“Me to corporate when I apply for traditional roles:
Corporate Jamaican people: You write books?
Me: Yeah. I write emails, proposals, white papers, codes, RFPs, RFQ,RFI… I study human behavior, psychology etc. I discuss, I persuade, i insist, argue, negotiate, proselytize and with 200,000 followers. I influence …Best corporate executive cannot be a writer, but the best writers can be anything.

Have you seen the thickness of one of my novels?
Then you understand how committed I am to any process with no surety that it will work out in my favour.
The ability to do boring, tedious, repetitive tasks without supervision or direction for long periods of time with no immediate reward…

Works likes charm every time.”
― Crystal Evans, Legal Choppings : 100 Business Ideas for Jamaicans