There's something about approaching 50 that's very liberating. Political struggle has always been a 24-hour-a-day job for me. I felt I could never take time out for myself. Now I feel I owe it to myself to develop in ways I've been putting off all my life.

And if I know anything at all, it's that a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down.

I'm truly blessed, because many of my friends come to Cuba. They like it here-they can relax and not worry about drive-by shootings or getting raped.

We’re taught at such an early age to be against the communists, yet most of us don’t have the faintest idea what communism is. Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.

A lot of contemporary American culture makes its way to this county. Cuba is not some gray, isolated backwater. This is a happening place.

I think that any time anybody gets rid of oppression, intervention, exploitation, cruelty - that's positive.

The U.S. doesn't recognize the laws of Cuba. They can kidnap anybody and bring them back to the States to face the so-called justice system. There's no telling what the U.S. government will do to me. I'm in constant danger; I guess I've gotten used to it.