So I do not consider myself a chronicler of my fatherland or even a chronicler of Havana

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

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?

Christ Jesus is full of compassion.

Sometimes, if you want to change a man's mind, you have to change the mind of the man next to him first.

Books allowed my imagination to take flight and it hasn’t landed yet

That old bald cheater, Time.

It was quite strange, because it's quite different from singing, although it's quite natural because you're used to performing or acting on stage.

"Amy," Elsie Moore said in her crackling voice, her gaze fixed on Declan. "I want you to get me a new bear. A blond one."

I used to get made fun of for being either too provocative or too eccentric, so I started to tone it down. I didn't fit in, and I felt like a freak.

I think we all lose in the end because we don't get to stay here forever.

In the first person, the readers feel smart, like it's them solving the case.

Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.