A good smoker, like a good lover, always takes his time with a cigar.

I was never a true journalist, I was a movie critic.

I think writers rush in where everybody is very frightened to tread

I think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city.

When I write, the first blank page, or any blank page, means nothing to me. What means something is a page that has been filled with words.

Cigars must be smoked one at a time, peaceably, with all the leisure in the world. Cigarettes are of the instant, Cigars are for eternity.

I was an avid radio fan when I was a boy, as well as a great lover of comic strips

So I do not consider myself a chronicler of my fatherland or even a chronicler of Havana

What I do believe is that there is always a relationship between writing and reading, a constant interplay between the writer on the one hand and the reader on the other

Writing for me, even what you call serious writing, is play.

If the sleep of reason produces monsters, what does the sleep of unreason produce?

As important as it is to always think like a winner, acting like one is what matters the most.

One mind awake can become stronger than a thousand zombies sleepwalking in a dying civilization.

A lot of people live in a property that will one day be part of their pension, and that is true for me too. I have an investment I can sell with ease.

In any war, people will pay the price.

I drag a lot of stuff round with me that I don't need.

No one's perfect. And we've all made our mistakes and you just have to live with them and try to not make them again.

Dogs are great assets to candidates, and the feeling seems to be engendered that if a dog loves the candidate, he can't be all that bad.

From 1965 to 1967, my dad, Jack Gilligan, served in Congress and helped pass landmark laws like the Voting Rights Act.

Why should we not enter into our inheritance in the church as well as the concert hall?

Do not worry about your originality. You could not get rid of it even if you wanted to.