I have assiduously avoided calling my books novels

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.

When you can give up approval and appreciation seeking behaviors, then you will become true to yourself and the universe.

He left me millions of time, but I am holding him with every breath with same madness

You can never really know where exactly people are looking at! At the place they are staring at? Or at their past? Or at their future?

We each have our lives... What matters is not how long those lives last, but what we do with them.

I thank God, that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down.

To me, the moment you're talking about nonfiction you're talking about reality.

When I'm feeling a little low, I put on my favorite high heels to stand a little taller.

At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust.

I made the mistakes not because I'm tired.

When torrential water tosses boulders, it is because of its momentum. When the strike of a hawk breaks the body of its prey, it is because of timing.