“Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.”

When you work to please others you can’t succeed, but the things you do to satisfy yourself stand a chance of catching someone’s interest.

The only paradise is paradise lost.

One must never miss an opportunity of quoting things by others which are always more interesting than those one thinks up oneself.

Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.

Instead of seeking new landscapes, develop new eyes.

Dear Friend: I have nearly died three times since morning.

If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.

Do not wait for life. Do not long for it. Be aware, always and at every moment, that the miracle is in the here and now.

Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination.

Reality is never more than a first step towards an unknown on the road to which one can never progress very far.

Nine tenths of the ills from which intelligent people suffer spring from their intellect.

A picture’s beauty does not depend on the things portrayed in it.

We are at times too ready to believe that the present is the only possible state of things.

The creation of the world did not occur at the beginning of time, it occurs every day.

You can’t learn the truth about a man’s intentions by asking him.

All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.

As a public poet, people often don’t see the reality of my life.

If you look at Cuba what’s the benefit in being in Cuba? Really? It’s almost like being in prison. You can’t think. You can’t have your own opinions. You have no opportunity. You just gotta live life the way you were born into it.

Lifes too short to live the same day twice.

Some people think it’s wrong, being single isn’t right. But if you hurt the right person, you’ll be wrong all your life.

I like to maintain a certain sense of fantasy in my life.

It is a fundamental rule of human life, that if the approach is good, the response is good.

The idea of my life as a fairy tale is itself a fairy tale.

The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term, is the indispensable prerequisite for success.