What is interesting in this is the exchange of music that occurred between New Orleans and Cuba, I mean, they had ferries that would go from one port to another.

Everyone comes back. It makes no difference how far we wander, we always have our country, our land, in our souls and our minds.

They're making a ton of money, and no one is getting a nickel.

And, he'd seen me in Panama, and he talked about maybe doing something in New York so I hooked it up when I came here and I recorded in 1969 my first album with Pete Rodriguez.

I was a kid, and I remember my mother singing. She was also a radio soap opera actress, but my mother sang.

Every band had their own distinctive sound, but it was pretty much dancing music and rhythmic music with a tremendous emphasis on copying the Cuban models.

People are a lot smarter than anyone gives them credit for being.

So that I saw music as a way of documenting realities from the urban cities of Latin America.

So that when I came from Panama... my family was exiled in 1973 and they went to Miami.

Anywhere you had a commerce center, you had a lot of music.

So that when I came to New York again, it was, I'm not too sure right now, but it was '74 or '75. I went to Miami in '74 and then I came to New York, I think, at the end of '74.

I will rather be poor doing what I love, than to be rich hating what I do.

My message for people to not take anything for granted, to respect what they might not understand.

The universe is then one, infinite, immobile. ... It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile.

I can forgive the body breaking down. It's a little tougher to forgive that mental lapse.

I was a basketball player. I'm a gym rat. I'm always in the gym playing.

I was good friends with Frank Sinatra, I heard Steve Kaufman painting his portrait, so I asked Steve to paint my portrait.

It’s a small story really, about, among other things: * A girl * Some words * An accordionist * Some fanatical Germans * A Jewish fist fighter * And quite a lot of thievery

There ain't nothing good that don't got real bad waiting to follow it.

There's nothing efficient about innovation.

Faith my homegirl. I just wanna send a shout out to Faith. Hey girl.