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

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.

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?

Loving ourselves is a revolutionary act!

...adopt the "practice makes progress" approach

Time Like a petal in the wind Flows softly by As old lives are taken New ones begin A continual chain Which lasts throughout eternity Every life but a minute in time But each of equal importance

I'm sixty-eight, I cry every chance I can.

Certainly there are great men whose age circumscribes them so completely that we lose interest.

If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then growing in our knowledge of God is always practical.

I was in the right place at the right time.

I generally don't involve myself in giving the actors some tips on acting. At the same time, I don't do that with the director.

Think about the books that you were reading at a certain crisis in your life, what you were reading, and that's because you needed them to nourish your alma.

I loved the guitar, and I had all of this music in my head. My passion for the guitar and the ideas for what I could create musically were equal. So that's where I was.