Top 110 Jamaica Quotes

We are doing very well for our country internationally, but when we are in Jamaica, our athletes are not being looked after. We are selling our country and marketing our country to the world and not being paid for it.

I just love the idea of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, whether it’s the success of ‘Cool Runnings,’ which is the success of four guys from Jamaica who had never seen snow, or whether it’s my success, just as a human being.

Here’s the key to Jamaica, the secret to Jamaican dancehall parties, no matter where you are in the world. If you do not see Japanese people, you’re at the wrong party. They source authenticity like no other culture I’ve ever seen.

I’ve been in Africa, America, moving around a lot. It’s helped me to open up my mind. I was born in Jamaica; I’ve lived all my life there and got all I could from Jamaica. But I needed to be somewhere else to grow.

I got family in the U.K. on my dad’s side of the family. My grandfather’s brother moved to the U.K. from Jamaica. It’s a pretty big family I’ll have there.

My family owned a furniture/appliance store near Kingston, Jamaica. I worked there all summer but lived in a very structured environment the rest of the year at an all-girl Catholic boarding school.

I think that anybody, once we leave Jamaica, automatically, any citizen becomes an ambassador for the flag, for Jamiaca. It’s a country that’s so rich in culture. We even have a bobsled team, and we ain’t even got snow. We do everything in extreme.

I grew up in uptown Jamaica; I went to a rich school. I was raised by my mother and my stepfather; they made sure education came before anything. I had a good childhood, grew up spending time with my bigger brothers and sisters. My people are good people. I was exposed to a lot of different kinds of people and culture.

Bob Marley performed the ‘One Love Peace’ concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There’s always been that in black music and culture in general. It’s no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what’s going on in black life. It’s not unusual for hip-hop.

In Jamaica, you’re never very far away from people who don’t have very much, and in Wilmette, pretty much everybody had a lot.

I’m a huge Bob Marley fan; I remember going to Jamaica for the first time when I was a kid and I got so obsessed with the steel drums.

My mother was related to four of Jamaica’s oldest families, and to say merely that she was out of the top drawer would not convey the quality of her breeding.

Port Royal, Jamaica, was built for pirates. The town had a well-protected harbor, corrupt politicians and townsfolk, and a set of ethics that seemed passed down from Sodom and Gomorrah.

My family were from Jamaica.

Because I come from a place like Jamaica, which is a small, open economy, I viscerally get the importance of the global economy.

I read about this hotel that was great, down in the south of the island, not in a touristy area. I had no particular desire ever to go to Jamaica, but I thought, what the hell? Sounds nice. Let’s go!

My mum came to Britain from Clarendon, in the south of Jamaica, to make a better life for her family.

We are the ones out there competing, and yet we read articles and listen to people making accusations about Jamaica, and there’s nobody there to take a microphone, be a big person and say, ‘What you’re saying is wrong, and it’s a lie.’

My relationship with everyone in Jamaica is good.

I grew up until I was seven in Jamaica with my grandmother, who I still think of as the greatest person I have known in my life.

Jamaica actually had a pretty big influence on my life.

I slept in the bedroom used by Sabine Baring-Gould’s wife when I was researching ‘The Moor,’ and later the Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor.

Growing up in Jamaica, the Pentecostal church wasn’t that fiery thing you might think. It was very British, very proper. Hymns. No dancing. Very quiet. Very fundamental.

As athletes, we sit and think, when international media or whoever make judgments or statements about Jamaica, ‘Why aren’t members of our federation coming out and speaking up for us?’

I feel really strongly about immigration because my mom is… from Jamaica. She still has a green card here.

I think Jamaica would thrive if we promote agriculture as a way to bring people here.

I wouldn’t be where I am, if not for Jamaica. My formative years were here. I wouldn’t have the confidence that I have if I wasn’t born here, because growing up here I knew I could become anybody I wanted to become. There was no ceiling on top of me.

Having grown up in different countries – Jamaica, Italy, U.K. – I catch the accents quite easily. In the U.S., they don’t know where I am from!

I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, as the youngest of four children and the only girl. My father died when I was only a year and a half. He was killed in a car accident when he was 26.

Recording in Jamaica is like nothing else. The studios are always closed in America. But in Jamaica, the studio doors are wide open, and there’s music blasting out in the street. You can see the reaction of people immediately.

I have been on a horrible sea cruise. When my wife and I went to Mexico, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands, I was seasick for a lot of the time. I didn’t like being trapped on a ship with a bunch of shuffleboarders.

I want to deal with somebody who comes from another country to the United States and has a family that comes. I don’t care if it’s a black family from Jamaica or a Hispanic family from Mexico. These issues need to be dealt with, but they need to be dealt with in the entertaining way.

I definitely know I’m going to be working a lot more with my foundation when it comes to developing the kids in Jamaica.

I was born in Jamaica, my whole family’s Jamaican, and they always give me a hard time for being the least Jamaican member of the family. But I think it’s their fault for naming me Sarah.

In Jamaica, we eradicated polio many years ago, but there are a lot of kids suffering in Africa still.

By the time my first album was out, I had been out in Jamaica three or four years, but I had hits out at that time that were bona fide hits.

You can tap into culture by exploring what’s grown or produced in the region, like going into the Blue Mountains in Jamaica to visit a coffee plantation or a rum distillery in Barbados.

My parents immigrated to this country from Jamaica with no more than a fifth-grade education.

In Jamaica, the music is recorded for the sound system, not the iPod. It’s about experiencing music together, with other people.

I have always loved doing accents. I have lived with my parents in a number of countries, including Italy and Jamaica.

To say ‘A High Wind in Jamaica’ is a novel about children who are abducted by pirates is to make it seem like a children’s book. But that’s completely wrong; its theme is actually how heartless children are.

I’ve always been attracted to something that’s a little bit left – Korean R&B, South African hip-hop. I’m really curious about my homies back in Jamaica, what are they listening to? I’m always searching.

I have never been to Jamaica and in footballing terms, I feel English because this is where I grew up and played all of my football. That is not to say I don’t have immense pride in my Jamaican heritage – I certainly do.

When people come to Jamaica, we don’t want them to think about the problems of Jamaica. So let them come be in their paradise.

I grew up with coconuts as the main flavor in food in Jamaica. It’s part of our culture.

Twenty or 30 years from now, I’m going to be on a beach in Jamaica.

Even in Jamaica, your own country, coming into youth cricket you need to be from an upscale high school or have a light skin. As you get older you get used to the culture. My club, Lucas Cricket Club, was the only one to accept black people back in the day.

Sometimes I’m in Boston or Washington or Chicago and think I’m in Jamaica because I hear more reggae on the radio in these places than in Kingston!

I wouldn’t have become an engineer, I wouldn’t have done what I did, had a hand not been held out to me. I have to remember who helped me when I needed help. The people of Jamaica helped me. I can’t forget that. I would be ungrateful if I forgot.

My mom was born in Jamaica and has always been around a community of black people, so she encouraged me to get out and act. My dad, on the other hand, is from suburban Massachusetts, so he had not been around a lot of black people.

I’ve never shied away from country. ‘Karma Chameleon’ verges on country. Reggae and country are very closely linked. If you go to Jamaica, you hear a lot of country music. There’s a correlation.

When you’re growing up in Jamaica and you don’t have much, and then you gain more and more… you can now share the more that you have with the people that have less because you know what less is like.

Jamaica has problems; America has problems; everywhere has problems.

I grew up in a wealthy upper-class household in Jamaica, which was run along militaristic lines by my mother, Gloria.

My mom is from Jamaica, and she was going to school in the morning, and in the evening she was working, and at night she would go to night school and then come in and go to sleep.

Obviously, I rep Jamaica. I’m a first generation born Jamaican-American. My parents are born and raised in Jamaica, my grandparents are born and raised in Jamaica, my other family still lives in Jamaica, and I still go back there.

It was such a culture shock for me, being plucked from this diverse neighborhood in London into Jamaica Queens. I’m in this new environment, and I had an English accent.

Jamaica full of ghetto, but boy, I tell you: me never see it like that.

In England, rain was thin and cold, and made you hunch up inside your coat, walking home from the bus stop. In Jamaica, it was wide and thick and invited you to step into it, and see how wet you could get, and be thrilled that it was warmer than the sea and warmer than your skin; it was abandon.

I knew that Jamaica Inn was going to make me a star.

My father is from Jamaica, and as a child I spent many holidays there. I remember the weight and drenching wetness of that hot rain, as I experienced it in my childhood, not only for itself, but for what it represented for me.

We’re not big on irony in Jamaica, sarcasm and double-talk. We tend to say things plainly, sometimes to the point of boredom.

My family is from Jamaica, it’s why I don’t do ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ because within two or three generations is slavery, and I’d be there two minutes in crying, they’re all slaves! So I don’t want to do ‘Who Do You Think You Are.’ It’s in my family.

Ive always loved Jamaica as its weather is so different from that in England. Theres something lovely, too, about walking along the beach in the evening, with sand between your toes, the sound of waves lapping and the breeze rustling the leaves.

My earliest memory of dancing is that I won a dance contest in Jamaica when I was 6.

Last time I was in Jamaica I financed a teacher to teach in an orphanage.

I live in Kingston. When I tell people I live in Kingston, they start fearing for my life. People ask me if I have Internet in Jamaica. Like, seriously?

My mother, Jeanne, was a TV and radio presenter in Jamaica. Bob Marley used to appear on her shows all the time and so she knew him quite well.

The thing about places like Trinidad and Jamaica is that they can be very musically insular. There isn’t much space for kids making hip-hop, electronic music, or hybrid genres.

It is good to make my comeback in Jamaica after not playing for so long.

Even with my family, I feel sort of ‘other.’ I’m the only one of my siblings who wasn’t born in Jamaica. For a long time, I didn’t feel very connected to Jamaican culture, but because I was raised so heavily with that cultural influence, I realized that my inner monologue is a Jamaican woman.

Doing business in Jamaica is not easy, but it is rewarding.

I picked a name that was a combination of an island name and a very English name. Havana was one choice and Dominico was another, but I liked the combination of Jamaica Kincaid.

Today, Jamaica is known because of just one man – Usain Bolt. Not many Indians have managed to reach the finals of track and field events at the Olympics and that says it all.

In the United States, viewers don’t get to see a lot of things we can show in other countries. We didn’t get to show our naked Twister game from Wild On Jamaica, but we definitely filmed it.

The mantra of the National Commercial Bank is ‘building a better Jamaica.’ If this bank is going to be everlastingly successful, it has to take on the ailments of this society.

I was actually born in deep rural Jamaica and came to Kingston as a high school girl.

When you see a Jamaica video, it’s always the hood. Everybody in the video’s got guns, and the world looks at it like that’s what Jamaica’s about. And it affects the economics of the music.

The place is really exceptional and I am fascinated and inspired, as Nagaland with its lush greenery and picturesque mountains as well as the peaceful atmosphere reminds me of my country Jamaica.

I didn’t realize I could sing until I served someone tea at a cafe my parents owned in north west London, where we had settled as a family, after moving from Jamaica when I was 11. I was harmonizing to a track on the jukebox and a man asked me how I managed to do it so well. He recommended me to a talent agent.

Jamaica has a lot of foods that give you energy and strength, as well as being very nice to eat.

Bob’s whole life is about Africa. It is not about Jamaica.

My dad is a great cricket fan, and I used to play a bit back in Jamaica.

In 1976, Rastafarians were one of the most violated, persecuted groups in Jamaica. They could be beaten within an inch of their lives, or detained for two years, just for being found in a ‘proper’ neighbourhood.

Getting to do what I think was my fifth BBC drama with Nikki Amuka-Bird – we’ve done ‘Shoot The Messenger,’ ‘Five Days,’ ‘The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,’ ‘Born Equal’ and now ‘Small Island’ – was another highlight for me. And filming in Jamaica was great, too.

I came here from Jamaica as a kid and didn’t go to school, really, never had a great education. I was a little bit bad on the street, running around, doing this, doing that, and always getting into trouble. I was completely written off, so boxing has definitely saved my life.

We’ve seen many heroes from Jamaica, you know, and to be put in that class or to be looked upon on that level is overwhelming. It’s pretty big shoes to fill, you know. I’m a size eight, but I’ll try my best.

I’ve opened up more by traveling outside Jamaica. It helps me to grow as a person to be outside of my element; to be on my own in a strange place meeting people.

I’m obsessed with how people talk! Accents, dialects… So whenever I go someplace where an accent is extremely distinct – Minneapolis, New Orleans, Jamaica, Vancouver – I always find myself trying to pick up the subtleties of their patterns.

Reggae was always playing at home in East Ham when I was growing up. Loud music would be coming from the bedroom, and downstairs all you’d hear was the bass. My uncles had sound systems and we used to go to Jamaica a lot as a family.

I’m a huge reggae fan. I want to go to Jamaica and make, like, Bob Marley ‘One Love’ positive songs. That’s what the world needs.

I grew up in a middle-class family in Jamaica, I had no self-worth issues whatsoever.

I’m intent on marketing Jamaica. Jamaica has the best coffee, the best sugar, the best ginger and some of the best cocoa in the world.

In the Caribbean islands, especially in Jamaica, have I found a country similar to South Africa plus the racial freedom I had sought so long.

I left Jamaica for a while, because as an artist I need to experience different things, see the world, have different energies. Living in one place is not good for me.

Dancehall has always had a homophobic problem, but you go to dance parties in Jamaica, and some of the biggest dancers are kinda gay, just not outspoken about it. Dancehall was the first kind of music I was DJing, and it was always more about the rhythm.

We need our children in Jamaica – especially those suffering with dyslexia, autism, cerebral palsy – to get more attention.

A family holiday to Jamaica in 2004 – my uncle was getting married out there, and it was the first holiday I’d had in Jamaica, which is where my father is from. My friends and I stayed in a really plush hotel, The Ritz-Carlton, so we had a great experience.

The Caribbean is such a rich place, and Jamaica, personally, is one of my favorite places in the world. I’ve been lucky to, on various projects, to have spent a lot of time down there.

I’m always in Jamaica in my fantasies. We have a home there, and it’s my special spiritual place where I get re-nourished.

Even if I wasn’t in music, even if my father was a carpenter, some guy in Jamaica would go ‘You’re just like Bob. You’re just like your father.’ That happens in Jamaica all the time.

Ireland kind of reminds me of Jamaicans – there are a lot of Irish people in Jamaica. It’s the blend of their easy-going nature, cool mentality, and warmth.

My dad came from Trinidad to Jamaica when he was 19. He had to go to Jamaica to join the British regiment, where it was based. After Sandhurst, he returned to the Caribbean as a junior lieutenant, based in Jamaica. He met my mum and became a Jamaican citizen.

I want to tell Jamaica, Happy 50th Anniversary.

I grew up in South Jamaica, Queens, in New York. My parents were very religious churchgoing people. They were very strict. I was never really allowed to indulge in anything vain. Modesty always. I have three brothers and two sisters, so everything was on a budget.

I come from a very big family from every economic background. Some of the streets I talk about, I’ve actually walked on because I have family from there. Jamaica has so many contradictions.

I want to go to Jamaica, actually. My whole family’s from there, so I’d like to go there.

My parents are from Jamaica, and I love reggae music.

Gays and lesbians should have the same rights as anybody else, and when they’re in Jamaica, they do have the same rights.

When you come to Jamaica, there’s a handful of things you simply have to try that’s right on the top of the list, and I think jerk chicken definitely has to be number one.