“The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”

There are enough doctors on the planet so that nobody has to die for lack of attendance.

There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.

I do not conceive of any manifestation of culture, of science, of art, as purposes in themselves. I think the purpose of science and culture is man.

I am a Marxist-Leninist and I will be one until the last day of my life.

I’ve always considered Christ to be one of the greatest revolutionaries in the history of humanity.

All criticism is opposition. All opposition is counter-revolutionary.

The truth is that after several decades of neoliberalism, the rich are becoming increasingly richer while the poor are both more numerous and increasingly poorer.

I’m not attached to anything. I’m attached to what it feels it’s my duty, to do my duty. I think that I will die with the boots on.

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.

I don’t want to be a supermodel; I want to be a role model.

Who are your favourite heroines in real life? The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model.

You know, I’ve never believed, in anything, that you had to have role models who looked like you to do something. If I’d been waiting for a black, female, soviet specialist role model, I’d be still waiting.

The world needs role models, instead of critics.

For a long time, I said I didn’t want to model. I was a dancer.

Chasing profits and building a long-term profit model are two different things.

I know I can be diva-ish sometimes, but I have to be in control. The nature of my life, the nature of what I do, is divadom, it really is.

You would think that a rock star being married to a super-model would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.