American literature had always considered writing a very serious matter

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.

I'm tired of having to struggle for what seems to come easily to everyone else.

And it's the wonders I'm after, even if I have to bleed for them.

I like to help poor people who got no chance. If rich people don't, who will? Not other poor people, that's for sure.

The first sense of mutual love excludes other feelings; it will have the soul all to itself.

I can focus on writing, or I can get lost in wonderfully fun but endless conversations and produce nothing new at all. I count on those people who enjoy my work to understand this.

And of Kanye's [West]? I have to say [I love] his heart. And I've always loved his legs.

Anyone can be confident with a full head of hair. But a confident bald man - there's your diamond in the rough.

The longest journey you'll ever make is the journey from the head to the heart

The Olympic Games are not just ordinary world championships but a quadrennial festival of universal youth. . . celebrated by each succeeding generation as it arrives on the threshold of adulthood.

Oh, to be alive in such an age, when miracles are everywhere, and every inch of common air throbs a tremendous prophecy, of greater marvels yet to be.