“Revolutionaries must proclaim their ideas courageously … and express their intentions so that no one is deceived.”

Everyone is a poet at 16, but how many are poets at 50? Generally, people seem to get more conservative as they age, but in my case, I seem to have gotten more radical.

I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief.

There is nothing more agreeable than having a place where one can throw on the floor as many cigar butts as one pleases without the subconscious fear of a maid who is waiting like a sentinel to place an ashtray where the ashes are going to fall.

I am someone who’s been in politics for 43 years and I know what I’m doing and what I should do. Have no doubt that I know how to tell the truth and to do so elegantly.

I propose the immediate launching of a nuclear strike on the United States. The Cuban people are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the destruction of imperialism and the victory of world revolution.

The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is – and I mean this seriously – the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been.

My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn’t work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious.

I would not vote for the mayor. It’s not just because he didn’t invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the airport there were such enormous potholes.

How can we help President Obama?

U.S. leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe.

Good athletes do not know what tiredness is. They do not know what discouragement is. Good athletes only know what victory is.

Condemn me, it does not matter: history will absolve me.

Ideas do not need weapons, to the extent that they can convince the great masses.

I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.

I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews.

I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything.