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.

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.

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.

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.

My life is proof that I don't need you to do what I do. If there's no one to see it, I'll watch it.

I look forward to hosting an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan here at the White House later this week, and wish you a blessed month.

I always was really confident about myself, about my voice, myself as a person, my body, all of those things, but as a songwriter - I just didn't identify as a songwriter at all.

knowledge is the best gift of pure God .

And then of course, obviously as far as issues such as global warming, something has to be done on the corporate side, there has to be some mandate or some legislation.

There is a very real danger of our putting our faith in our sermon rather than in the Spirit. Our faith should not be in the sermon, it should be in the Holy Spirit Himself.

One learns more metaphysics from a single temptation than from all the philosophers.

Happiness is the maximum agreement of reality and desire.

We've got a lot of guys in here that are playing for pride and contracts and different things. Now that we are out of the race, guys are playing looser and you can see it in our play.