I was born in a territory called Biran, in the eastern region of Cuba. It’s known by that name, although it has never appeared on a map.

Cuba has become a symbol of courageous resistance to attack. Since 1959, Cuba has been under attack from the hemispheric superpower.

I was born in St. Louis but lived there just for a few minutes in my life.

In this country, it doesn’t make any difference where you were born. It doesn’t make any difference who your parents were. It doesn’t make any difference if, like me, you couldn’t even speak English until you were in your twenties.

The revenues of Cuban state-run companies are used exclusively for the benefit of the people, to whom they belong.

American imperialism is often traced to the takeover of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii in 1898.

I wanted a name I could shape the music towards. I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba – ‚Lana Del Rey‘ reminded us of the glamour of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue.

The Indians on board said that thence to Cuba was a voyage in their canoes of a day and a half; these being small dug-outs without a sail. Such are their canoes. I departed thence for Cuba, for by the signs the Indians made of its greatness, and of its gold and pearls, I thought that it must be Cipango.

I’ve studied authoritarianism for a very long time – for 40 years – and they’re started by people’s attempts to control the ideological and linguistic territory.

Never have we stolen the intelligences of other peoples. On the contrary, in Cuba we have trained tens of thousands of doctors and other top-level professionals, for free, in order to send them back to their own countries.

Many things shall change in Cuba, but they shall change because of our efforts and despite the United States. Perhaps that empire shall crumble first.

U2 is an original species… there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone.

I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba – Lana Del Rey reminded us of the glamour of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue.

My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families – second families, perhaps I should say.

I don’t think it is so difficult to solve the problems between Cuba and the United States; it all depends on whether there is a dialogue, a discussion, or if the prejudices and hatred of people like the extremists and terrorists from the Cuban community, who try to impose their policies, prevail.

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.

Chavez, who came out of the ranks of the Venezuelan Army, is methodical and tireless. I have observed him over the course of 17 years, since his first visit to Cuba. He is an extremely humanitarian and law-abiding person; he has never taken revenge on anybody.

North Americans don’t understand… that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity.

Castro couldn’t even go to the bathroom unless the Soviet Union put the nickel in the toilet.

Cuba never had advisors in Vietnam. The military there knew very well how to conduct their war.

I was born in New York in 1904.

Even in the United States, the enslavement of African descendants continued until the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. That brutal form of slavery was abolished there hardly thirty years before it was abolished in Cuba.

I am Fidel Castro and we have come to liberate Cuba.

At the age of 6, a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public school of Biran, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the little school in Biran.

It is unnecessary to say that Fidel Castro possesses the high qualities of a fighter and statesman: our path, our struggle, and our triumph we owed to his vision.

On one occasion, I accompanied my father to Pinares de Mayari. I was eight or nine years old. How he enjoyed talking when he left the house in Biran! There he was the proprietor of the land where sugar cane, pasture, and other agricultural crops were planted.

In the late Fifties and early Sixties, opposition to state terror and aggression and torture and so on was zero. That was a horrible time: the massive Kennedy terror operation against Cuba, the first attacks on Vietnam in 1962, the imposition of national security states in South America.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

Our position is that we do not accept conditions of any kind which may affect the independence and sovereignty of our country just with the view to solve economic problems existing between the United States and Cuba.

Cuba came to be the last country to get rid of Spanish colonialism and the first to shake off the heinous imperialist tutelage.

A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it, too. But the government won’t allow it.

There are certain sounds that I’ve found work well in nearly any context. Their function is not so much musical as spatial: they define the edges of the territory of the music.

Fifty years of isolating Cuba had failed to promote democracy, setting us back in Latin America. That’s why we restored diplomatic relations, opened the door to travel and commerce, and positioned ourselves to improve the lives of the Cuban people.