Chano Pozo created the role of the conga soloist in the modern band, somewhat th way Coleman Hawkins created the solo tenor sax.

Like slaves on the sugar plantations of the Antilles, ...the sugar slaves of southern Louisiana had negative birthrates for as long as slavery lasted.

Miguelito, liberated from having to sing with Cugat, sounds like he just got out of jail and is letting it rip.

That spirit of mockery characteristic of the guaracha was part of the mambo from the beginning.

One often reads that the 1950s was the golden age of Cuban music, but it was really one long phase, from 1937 to 1958, each year with its own splendour.

Every farm with slaves was a slave-breeding farm. Raising slaves was mostly a cottage industry.

Up through and including Lincoln, American politicians nursed a fantasy of repatriating blacks to Africa.

You have to realise that I am the third out of six children, and I am raised with very strong core values and a very strong upbringing. I always put myself in other people's shoes.

You can be creative and not addictive, or addictive and not creative. Most addicted people do not produce anything of remarkable note.

Maybe its time we get a toolbox that doesnt just count whats easily counted, the tangible in life, but actually counts what we most value, the things that are intangible.

A good book is a kind of paper club, serving to rouse the slumbrous and to silence the obtuse.

Everything good I've ever gotten in life, I only got because I gave something else up.

I like to go out and write. So I'll often go to a Starbucks or a local coffee bar, and I'll sit there and I'll write. I can write pretty much anywhere.

Who depends upon another man's table often dines late.

The Kite Runner is a story of two boys and a father, and the strange love triangle that binds them.

In health we're doing the digestive system. We each got assigned a topic for an oral report. I got the small intestine. I swear to god I hate my life.

To Be Successful You Don't Need Beautiful Face And Heroic Body, What You Need is Skillful Mind And Ability To Perform