" I did not know a climate like this could produce flowers that bloomed like that, bloomed with such abandon, as if there were no tomorrow. Mariah placed the flowers before me and told me to smell them. I did, and I told her that this smell made you want to lie down naked and cover your body with these petals so you could smell this way forever. When I said this, Mariah opened her eyes wide and drew in her breath in a mock-schoolmistress way, and then she laughed so hard she had to put the vase of flowers down, for she was afraid she would break it. "

― Jamaica Kincaid , Lucy